The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set news policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com
Amy Fried is a retired political science professor at the University of Maine. Her views are her own and do not represent those of any group with which she is affiliated.
Former President Donald Trump has a certain superpower. He’s good at branding, relentlessly repeating phrases meant to stick in listeners’ minds. But his past words, contradicting themselves, have come back to haunt him.
One discrepancy involves money and politics.
Trump’s first presidential campaign began when campaign finance was a big issue. In vying for the 2016 Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders, who’s always been against the power of corporations and the wealthy in politics, went after Hillary Clinton for giving paid speeches to banks and the like.
Trump rhetorically got into the action, railing against “the swamp,” a term evoking the crooked, uncaring and corrupt.
Back then Trump claimed he wouldn’t get funds from anyone else, saying, “I’m using my own money … I’m not using donors.” Trump also contended this would make him immune from pressures from lobbyists, unlike “pretty much whoever is president other than me.”
Even if it was true he was not taking donations (it wasn’t), Trump’s now making overt promises to deliver for donors.
In talking to oil executives last month at Mar-a-Lago, Trump asked for $1 billion. That’s a huge amount, given that $5.7 billion was spent in the 2020 presidential races.
And Trump said he’d give them a massive payoff. According to the New York Times, “Over a chopped steak dinner, Mr. Trump told about 20 oil and gas executives that they would save far more than $1 billion in avoided taxes and legal fees after he repealed environmental regulations.” That dinner, and another fundraiser Trump attended “for MAGA Inc., a super PAC, that was hosted by three oil executives at a five-star hotel in Houston” is under investigation by the Senate.
Trump thus would make a sharp turn away from Biden’s ambitious climate policy. As Pete Maysmith of the League of Conservation voters put it,“The choice in this election could not be more stark and the stakes could not be higher … Biden has taken 322 positive actions around climate and the environment … Donald Trump basically auctioned off our climate and environmental laws — auctioned off our future — to the tune of $1 billion to oil executives when he met them in Mar-a-Lago.”
Another juxtaposition involves the criminal justice system.
During the 2016 campaign Trump and his allies led chants of “Lock her up,” gleefully calling for his opponent, Hillary Clinton, to go to jail for having an unsecured computer server for sensitive work emails, none of which were marked as classified. He called himself “the law and order candidate.”
Now Trump faces a slew of criminal charges. One case involves removing highly classified documents from the White House, refusing to give them back, lying about how many he had and hiding them from investigators. Two cases have to do with Trump’s efforts to thwart the peaceful transfer of power.
And Trump has been convicted of 34 New York state charges of falsifying business records for illegally laundering hush payments to cover up alleged adulterous sex with a porn star from voters.
Like every defendant, Trump had rights, including the ability to complain, and he has, repeating his talking points about a rigged trial.
Trump’s attorneys helped select jurors. They cross-examined prosecution witnesses, presented their own and made arguments about the case and the law.
As witnesses, a recording and documents showed, Trump put together a plan with his friend, National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, to work with Michael Cohen to “catch and kill” negative stories about Trump and put out ones about his opponents. Because Cohen was convicted in part because he was part of the charged conspiracy, the judge told jurors they needed corroboration of Cohen’s testimony.
Remember when the Access Hollywood tape, with Trump bragging about grabbing women’s private parts, became public? It caused a huge political uproar, something we all saw and about which Trump aide Hope Hicks testified. (Weirdly, Trump lawyer Todd Blanche claimed it didn’t rock the campaign.) That’s the 2016 context that motivated the secret payments to Stormy Daniels via falsified business records, even as Trump called Clinton a criminal.
But this year, as Trump wallows in the big money swamp, making promises to big donors, his claims could not convince a jury of his peers.