WASHINGTON (TND) — Another day has passed and – despite the former president's weekend prediction – Donald Trump has yet to be indicted.
There may be another witness the grand jury is waiting to hear from, or there could be complications with the case – which centers on whether he violated campaign finance laws by making hush money payments to porn actor Stormy Daniels and playboy model Karen McDougal.
Either way, the political and legal worlds are watching closely to see what the fallout may be.
On Wednesday, Trump continued his assault on his accusers, unleashing a barrage of emails attacking Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg.
Some of the 45th president’s long-time allies in Congress
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., tweeted his succinct thoughts on the matter Tuesday, saying, "A Trump indictment would be a disgusting abuse of power. The DA should be put in jail."
"Nobody's ever done this. This is unprecedented, going after a former president of the United States that is running for president," Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., a fervent Trump supporter, told reporters at the Capitol. 'It looks like, you know, the Democratic Party's going after their political rivals."
This, ironically, could actually help Trump in his effort to take back the White House, says famed defense attorney Alan Dershowitz.
“They’ll have a mugshot,” he told The National Desk Wednesday, "and he [Trump] uses it as a campaign poster and people get t-shirts made out of the mugshot and he benefits from it enormously.”
"He’ll continue to campaign and [then], six months from now, there’ll be a trial.”
Rep. David Valadao, R-Calif., told The National Desk Wednesday that “President Trump has a reputation for fighting. And I think, sometimes, people on the Republican side are surprised when the fighting comes back to him.”
Democrats believe what happens in court, could also affect the ballot box.
“Well, let me just say anybody who breaks the law should be held accountable: Nobody should be above the law,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told the The National Desk. "I believe that if the DA chooses to indict Donald Trump, it will be because there’s an enormous amount of evidence that he should be indicted.”
As he faces down this possible indictment – as well as investigations by a Georgia grand jury and the Department of Justice into his alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in addition to a separate Justice Department investigation into his possible mishandling of classified documents – on top of back-to-back loses in the popular vote, many of his endorsed-candidates failing in 2022 and the two impeachments, is the fervor that propelled him to the White House once, and nearly twice, dying down? Is this all taking a toll on the former president's political and cultural momentum?
It may be.
Juliette Kayyem, a professor of international security at Harvard University and assistant secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs under Pres. Obama, noted even as Trump called for protests over the weekend, the turnout has dwindled for a man who commanded massive rallies for two election cycles.
“He cannot get people out there," she said. "I mean, that’s the one thing that’s been amazing the last couple days: You’ve got like four people in front of Trump tower and five in front of Mar-a-Lago.”
The next true test of Trump’s support will be in Waco, Texas on Saturday, when he holds his first rally since predicting his arrest.
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