The charges against Donald J. Trump — past and pending — become the background music of the 2024 presidential campaign: ever-present, setting the mood, but not entirely the focus.
Like so much of the Trump presidency itself, the extraordinary has leveled off to the point that Mr. Trump’s warning Tuesday that he may face a third indictment this year, this time for his involvement in the events leading up to the January 6 storming of the Capitol, drew a shrug from some sections of his party and a confused response from his rivals.
At a Republican congressional fundraising luncheon in Washington on Tuesday, news of a likely third indictment against Trump went completely unmentioned, one attendee said. The strategists of some opposing campaigns all but ignored the development. And on Capitol Hill, Trump’s allies are quickly resuming their now-usual defensive positions.
Two and a half years ago, the deadly riot that defiled the country’s seat of government threatened to tarnish Trump’s political legacy forever. His supporters had stormed the Capitol to stop confirmation of his defeat, incited by their leader who had urged them to “fight like hell”. Even staunch Republicans broke with him when broken glass littered the Capitol complex.
But today, Mr. Trump is the undisputed frontrunner for the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination. And the threatening allegations related to January 6 against Mr. Trump were instead turned on Tuesday by his Republican defenders into attacks on his successor.
“We have yet another example of Joe Biden’s armed Justice Department targeting his main political opponent, Donald Trump,” Representative Elise Stefanik, the No. 4 House Republican, told reporters on Capitol Hill.
When Mr. Trump and Ms. Stefanik spoke on the phone Tuesday, the former president remained on the phone as they discussed how to use Republican-led House committees to try to attack the investigations. Mr Trump also spoke to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who accused the Biden administration of trying to “arm the government to go after their No. 1 adversary”.
Their comments echoed a role Republicans in Congress played for Mr Trump twice before when he was impeached, and twice when he was impeached earlier this year. The first charge came in March from the Manhattan district attorney in connection with hush money payments to a porn star. The second was in June, when he was indicted on charges of holding top secret classified documents and obstructing efforts to recover them.
Republicans and Mr. Trump’s extensive job have set a rhythm for how to respond. But on the campaign trail, Mr. Trump’s leading rivals continue to struggle to even formulate an answer.
Chief among them is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Mr. Trump’s biggest rival. On a stopover in South Carolina, Mr. DeSantis Tuesday that Mr. Trump “should have acted more forcefully” against the protesters who stormed the Capitol that day.
But after that line was picked up by Trump surrogates to attack Mr. DeSantis, his usually powerful DeSantis War Room Twitter account was anything but belligerent, accusing those surrogates of take the governor out of context.
“I hope he doesn’t get charged,” Mr. DeSantis said of Mr. Trump in an interview that later aired on DailyExpertNews.
The DailyExpertNews interview should have been a landmark moment for a candidate who had previously avoided any sit-downs that the “corporate media” he regularly denounces might legitimize. Instead, the network interrupted its own exclusive taped DeSantis interview with live updates from outside a Florida courthouse about a Mr. Trump’s upcoming trials. The sequence seemed to reflect the state of the race that Mr. Trump dominates.
Justin Clark, who served as Trump’s deputy campaign manager in 2020 and whose firm National Public Affairs conducted the primary polls, said the challenge for his rivals is the voters themselves. Data from Mr Clark’s company shows that Republicans view an attack on Mr Trump “as an attack on them,” he said.
“That loyalty is not something that is easily beaten in a campaign,” he added. “His opponents also see that and that is why they proceed very carefully. It’s hard to see another Republican break out when primary voters rally around their most recent president and any challengers have to hold their fire.
Trump revealed on Tuesday that he had received a “target letter” from Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith investigating his role in the lead-up to the Jan. 6 violence.
“Almost always means arrest and charges,” Trump wrote of the target letter on Truth Social.
Mr. Smith’s office already sued Mr. Trump in federal court in June, saying he possessed masses of national defense equipment and obstructed the investigation. In the coming weeks, he may face charges in Georgia for attempting to overturn that state’s 2020 election.
Alyssa Farah Griffin, who had been Mr. Trump’s communications director before stepping down in late 2020 and publicly breaking with her former boss, said: “What’s most striking to me is that most of Trump’s GOP opponents, who are behind him by double digits, still won’t take this opportunity to expose his inappropriate actions.”
One reason is that Mr. Trump, and the Republican primaries, have so thoroughly rewritten January 6, 2021 history. The mere mention of the day is no longer an overwhelmingly clear political loser for the former president, at least in a Republican primary. Mr Trump declared the violence a “love fest” two months after the attack and has continued to do so.
Indeed, at a rally this year in Texas, Mr. Trump put his hand over his heart and listened to the song “Justice for All” that featured his voice and that of some January 6 inmates.
Few prominent elected officials were hit as directly on January 6 as former Vice President Mike Pence. But even he refused to suggest that Mr Trump should be prosecuted, saying the election should be how the case is settled.
“I believe history will hold him accountable for his actions that day,” Pence told NewsNation Tuesday. But of an indictment, he said, “I hope it doesn’t come to that.” I am not convinced that the president acting on bad advice from a group of idiot lawyers who entered the White House in the days leading up to January 6 is actually a criminal.”
There were some exceptions.
Low-spirited former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson said in a statement that “Donald Trump’s actions on January 6 should disqualify him from ever running for president again.”
And former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie wrote on Twitter that he wants to see the indictment for himself before speaking his mind, but added that Mr. Trump’s behavior on Jan. 6 proves he doesn’t care about our country and our constitution.
The details in the first federal indictment against Mr. Trump — allegations that he brandished material he described as secret government documents in front of people without security clearances at two of his private clubs — hardly killed his support. Several Republican elected officials instinctively jumped to support him, and his polls remained high or even rose.
Rob Stutzman, a California Republican strategist who helped drive Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential race, says he believes it will all end up being too much freight for Mr. Trump to carry to win the nomination.
“There has been the issue of electability and as these indictments pile up and details emerge, I don’t think we know yet whether voters will follow him when there appear to be viable competing alternatives,” Mr Stutzman said.
Mr Trump’s team has taken advantage of his previous indictments to raise huge sums of campaign money. But in Iowa on Tuesday, during a town hall-style interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, Mr. Trump dismissed the friendly host’s suggestion that he might be able to shrug off his latest legal entanglement.
“No,” said Mr. Trump, “it bothers me.”
Maya King reporting contributed.
