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On Thursday, 12 days after Donald Trump first predicted he’d be indicted and a day after he praised a Manhattan grand jury for not indicting him, the former president’s legal luck ran out when he was indicted for violations of campaign finance law.
We don’t know the specific charges yet, but we can reasonably surmise it has something to do with Trump using 2016 campaign funds to pay for the silence of adult film actress Stormy Dianels (née Stephanie Clifford) with whom Trump allegedly had a sexual affair back in 2006. Trump’s then-attorney Michael Cohen took out a home equity loan of $130,000 in order to pay Daniels and was then reimbursed by the campaign. Which, to borrow law terminology, is super illegal.
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The charges at the center of the New York state indictment pale in comparison to other laws Trump has allegedly violated or bragged about violating during his long tenure as a public figure. Trump is circling something like four drains right now.
A grand jury in Georgia also sounds poised to indict the former president on charges regarding his attempts to bully state election officials into falsifying 2020 electoral results, if statewide legislators’ attempts to jam up the case by firing the prosecutor don’t work out. Trump also must face a jury in a civil trial involving the writer E. Jean Carroll, who alleges that Trump defamed her when he called her a liar after she had accused him of sexually assaulting her in a New York City department store dressing room in the 1990s.
But Trump’s extensive resume of being a career shithead—a failed coup attempt, stiffing the contractors who built his hotels and casinos, two impeachments, numerous sexual misconduct and assault allegations, several near-misses with the IRS, stealing classified documents from the White House and storing him in the basement of his country club and lying about it, hiring his unqualified moron relatives and slimeball unregistered foreign agents for high-level government jobs, broadcasting his toilet thoughts to Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson like they were Miss Cleo and he was paying 99 cents a minute for their psychic insight, and some light treason—it does feel fitting that this indictment is his first.
Trump allegedly had an extramarital affair back in 2006, while his wife was at home with their newborn son—trashy! Trump then tried to cover up that affair by having his attorney take out a home equity loan for $130,000—oh my god, what an asshole! And he reimbursed his bag man with campaign funds. (He or his surrogates have admitted to as much.) What a blithering moron!
Will Trump go to jail over this? Probably not. The statute of limitations has expired on the alleged crime at the center of the indictment. New York City court watchers are quick to point out that the Manhattan District Attorney’s office has some PR potholes to fill after former District Attorney Cy Vance whiffed several opportunities to prosecute Trump and members of his family.
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Regardless, women who always found Trump to be a disgusting pig will likely find that today’s indictment adds richness and decadence to their mental state—like bacon fat instead of oil in a vinaigrette. Trump is a sexist asshole, perhaps the preeminent asshole in contemporary American life. That’s what his supporters love about him. That’s what regular people find distasteful about him. And it’s what most decent people loathe.
But Trump is, objectively, a pig of a man.
He’s been publicly, humiliatingly unfaithful to all three of his wives. One of his wives alleged that he physically and sexually abused her; she is now buried on his New Jersey golf course in what many observers say is a blatant attempt by Trump to save money on property taxes. Two dozen women have accused him of sexual abuse or misconduct. He’s made no secret of being sexually attracted to his oldest daughter. He used to pal around with the international sexual predator of children, Jeffrey Epstein. He famously barged into the changing area backstage of the Miss Teen USA pageant, back when he owned the pageant. He has literally bragged about sexually assaulting women.
Trump is a dick to everybody, but he’s mostly a dick to women, especially women who dare deviate from what he wants them to be. Women who are not sexually available or too sexually available, women who are too old, women who are too heavy or whose breasts are too small. Women who are too brunette or too indifferent to his personal preferences for how they should be or act. Women who are too Black, or too gay. Women who will not do his bidding. Women who are not completely malleable are not only worthless to Trump, they are scorned.
Being an asshole isn’t illegal, but every woman in America would probably think it was pretty great if the biggest asshole they knew went to jail.
And now, nearly two weeks after his Ides of March prediction, the closest thing living Americans have encountered to a self-proclaimed Caesar was metaphorically stabbed on the steps of the Senate by what he thought had always been his closest friend and ally—pussy.
It’s beautiful.
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