https://www.thenationalnews.com/opinion/comment/2023/06/19/america-looks-set-for-a-biden-trump-rematch-and-voters-are-rightly-dreading-it/

The president and his main challenger have yet to convince most voters they can succeed, and yet they are the only real choices.

As incumbent US president Joe Biden formally kicked off his re-election campaign at a rally in front of 2,000 union members in Philadelphia, last week the 2024 election campaign came more sharply into view – and most Americans appear decidedly underwhelmed. A rematch of the last election, pitting Mr Biden against his predecessor, Donald Trump, seems to be shaping up, though most Republicans and Democrats say they would prefer a different choice.

Mr Biden is effectively running unopposed. His only noteworthy challenger is Robert F Kennedy, Jr, noted for anti-scientific opposition to most vaccines. Were Mr Kennedy running as a Republican, he might be polling ahead of several well-established candidates, although surely not Mr Trump. However, as a Democrat, he really doesn’t stand a chance.

Many Democrats are frustrated by Mr Biden’s slow start. A major fundraising quarter went by with virtually no activity from his nascent campaign. Instead, Mr Biden was happy to leave matters to the Democratic National Committee. From his perspective, especially since he’s effectively unopposed, it makes sense. But many Democrats would have preferred a more vigorous and earlier re-election effort, if nothing else for party morale.

Moreover, there are growing doubts that Mr Biden still has the energy and physical wherewithal for a long and gruelling campaign against the likes of Mr Trump, who adores campaigning but profoundly dislikes governing, or Florida Governor Ron DeSantis who has been focusing heavily on his youthful 44 years and three young children, all under age 6. That’s now mainly aimed at Mr Trump, 77, but could be even more powerful against the 80-year-old Mr Biden should Mr DeSantis upend the current trajectory and secure the Republican nomination.

Mr Biden is clearly showing his age. He still speaks lucidly on policy matters, and journalists who have had extended lunch and other meetings with him privately report he’s alert, acute and on point. However, he has shown signs of confusion at times and, to take just one particularly odd recent example, he ended an otherwise unremarkable speech about the importance of greater gun control measures with the cryptic comment “God save the Queen, man”.

The video of the moment suggests he knew perfectly well what he was saying and it was some kind of eccentric joke. Unfortunately, his aides were unable to explain just what it might have been about, and later suggested he was somehow referring to an audience member. But they were unable to successfully assuage doubts that, perhaps, Mr Biden had a spectacular and public “senior moment”.

But even if it’s true, as it would appear, that he remains mentally formidable, there are significant reasons to question whether he has the stamina for months of exhausting campaigning. In 2020, campaigning was remarkably light because of the coronavirus pandemic, but that will not be the case for the next 17 months before Americans return to the polls. And there is virtually no enthusiasm for his running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris, suddenly emerging as the Democratic presidential nominee.

There are numerous potentially impressive Democratic candidates who could credibly replace Mr Biden – mainly, governors including Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Gavin Newsom of California, JB Pritzker of Illinois, Roy Cooper of North Carolina and Jared Polis of Colorado, none of whom are elderly. But if Mr Biden cruises to an unopposed nomination only to find himself physically overwhelmed by the demands of an exhausting campaign, Ms Harris could end up inheriting the nomination by default.

Yet Mr Biden has been a figure of endless surprises since he roared back to the head of the pack after the South Carolina Democratic primary in February 2020. As President, he has secured a remarkable string of legislative achievements with very little leverage in Congress. And his administration’s handling of the war in Ukraine is surely the best US foreign policy performance since the liberation of Kuwait in 1990-91. So, the millions of Democratic doubters may find themselves, yet again, pleasantly surprised by Uncle Joe.

The polls consistently suggest that Mr Trump, if not going from strength to strength in the Republican primaries, is at least maintaining a very healthy lead over Mr DeSantis and all other challengers. Yet he, too, is showing his 77 years, and more importantly, is facing severe legal and reputational peril that, although it may not threaten his ability to secure the Republican nomination, could very well render him effectively non-competitive in a general election.

The indictment brought against him in the federal Espionage Act case filed two weeks ago by special prosecutor Jack Smith cannot seriously be dismissed as a partisan vendetta or an exaggerated triviality. The indictment tells the story of a former president who, with apparent disregard for national security and the well-being of US troops around the world, treated the most sensitive military and intelligence documents as, at best, trophies or keepsakes, leaving them completely unsecured in open public places at his Florida hotel and displaying them to random individuals with no security clearances.

There is every reason to fear that the trial will drag on well past the general election, and possibly for many years. However, even some of Mr Trump’s diehard supporters will be given pause if they ever actually read the damning charging papers, complete with photographs and other documentary evidence.

These days, presidential elections are effectively decided by a few hundred thousand Americans in five or six swing states. These voters, including many suburban women, turned decisively against Mr Trump in 2020, delivering the White House to Mr Biden. They appear to have moved even further from Mr Trump, his candidates and his brand of politics in the 2022 midterms. And since then, Mr Trump, with his threats of “retribution” against his adversaries – not to mention the civil judgment that he sexually assaulted a well-known writer in the 1990s – has, if anything, alienated them further still.

It may still be that the general public will get their way, and that neither Mr Trump nor Mr Biden will be their party’s nominee. However, it’s far more likely that most Americans will again face a distasteful binary choice between A and B. If so, Mr. Biden is very likely to secure a second term – or as much of it as he can complete.

https://www.thenationalnews.com/opinion/comment/2023/06/12/donald-trump-indictment-classified-documents/

The former US President is going to find it extremely difficult to explain his obstructionist actions.

Last Thursday, former US president Donald Trump was indicted, for a second time, on serious criminal charges. Unlike the hush money and tax evasion case brought by the elected Democratic district attorney in Manhattan, the new charges stem from the very federal government that Mr Trump used to lead. Thirty seven counts regarding core national security concerns have been brought by an independent, non-partisan, special prosecutor, Jack Smith.

Before they had even seen the indictment, Republican leaders rushed to Mr Trump’s defence, accusing US President Joe Biden of being personally responsible, even though both he and attorney general Merrick Garland, who appointed Mr Smith, ensured that there was no political input from the administration. A personal aide, Walt Nauta, who followed Mr Trump from the White House into private life, is accused of physically moving and concealing from the authorities boxes of allegedly purloined classified documents.

The substance of the indictment is devastating, including an apparent”smoking gun”: audio of Mr Trump apparently waving around highly sensitive military planning documents while declaring them classified and noting that while he was president he could have declassified them, but, out of office, he no longer could.

That not only adds almost irrefutable proof that Mr Trump deliberately absconded with classified material, and that his claims to have created a system whereby any document he removed from White House offices were automatically declassified are nonsense. All of his former senior officials have scoffed at the idea, which flouts the official declassification process to which even presidents must adhere.

Even if the documents were declassified, the Presidential Records Act mandates that all presidential documents be transferred to the National Archives, and the Espionage Act prohibits any unauthorised removal of government documents and, especially, their dissemination. The indictment outlines at least two cases of dissemination, wherein highly sensitive classified documents were shown to individuals with no security clearances whatsoever.

Mr Trump is going to find it extremely difficult to explain away his obstructionist actions and statements, such as asking his aides: “Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here? … Look, isn’t it better if there are no documents?” exactly as his attorneys eventually falsely attested; or when he praised an attorney who had allegedly destroyed official documents; or when he instructed Mr Nauta to move 64 boxes of documents just before authorities were coming to search for classified material.

The indictment details with photographs how these boxes including some of the most highly sensitive US government information involving military plans against key adversaries, one country’s support for terrorist activities, and the nuclear capabilities of other states were piled high on an open stage at his Florida hotel. Many were then moved to a nearby bathroom, and after that disseminated among offices and storage places, none of which had adequate security – if any at all – and which were accessible to virtually anyone coming and going and what amounted to an open public space.

Any hostile intelligence services that failed to take advantage of this extraordinary opportunity must be kicking themselves. Unlike the dull and technical Manhattan charges, any American juror will readily understand these laws and why it is unacceptable, from a national security perspective, to have them broken, especially in this cavalier manner.

Mr Trump’s attorneys will no doubt argue that because other senior former officials like Mr Biden, Mike Pence, and Hillary Clinton were found to be in possession of sensitive materials after they left office, he is being unfairly singled out. However, none of them attempted to conceal the material from the authorities or obstruct justice.

The case appears so strong that Mr Trump’s best option may be to try to obstruct and delay proceedings so endlessly that they continue beyond his lifetime. In that, he may have an invaluable ally: Judge Aileen Cannon, who will be presiding. She was one of Mr Trump’s last appointments, and at a hearing last September granted his outlandish requests, including restricting government access to its own classified documents.

Her ruling was harshly struck down by a highly conservative appellate court, and she is now widely regarded as one of the least competent and most pro-Trump judges in the country. That this evidently highly partisan judge would be appointed, apparently randomly, twice in a row on Mr Trump’s cases seems extraordinarily unlikely. Yet it has happened.

In a criminal trial, especially under close scrutiny, her rulings can probably only go so far in protecting him from a jury verdict. However, she could assist him by approving endless delays and otherwise making the government’s task as difficult as possible. But she may not end up presiding over the full trial after all, especially if Mr Smith makes a major effort to somehow secure any other judge in the Southern District of Florida.

Mr Trump’s reaction was predictably outrageous. He denounced the entire law enforcement system, called Mr Smith “a psycho,” and declared himself “an innocent man” victimised by yet another “witch hunt”. He also hinted at violence by his supporters, and authorities are preparing for that. But his mayhem-prone supporters may be incarcerated or deterred by the long prison sentences given to ringleaders of the January 6 insurrection.

A bigger complication than threats of mayhem is how unprecedented this trial will be. Mr Trump is not only the former president, he’s also the current front runner for the Republican presidential nomination.

Ms Cannon, in her widely derided September ruling, argued that former presidents and current candidates deserve special consideration and safeguards. This was firmly and specifically rejected by the appellate court, but there’s every danger that, if she is the trial judge, she will continue to kowtow to the former president.

If she continues to carve out special protections for Mr Trump, Mr Smith may find his mountain of damning evidence repeatedly sidelined, or the proceedings endlessly delayed. The first task of the special prosecutor, then, is to do everything possible to secure a different, more competent, and less shamelessly biased judge for the full trial.

But for the country, the result of the 2024 election is infinitely more important than the outcome of this trial. Mr Trump has been frank about his authoritarian intentions. Whether he ever goes to prison or not, politically, the verdict is already in: he cannot be allowed anywhere near the White House ever again.