700-plus years and counting? What would Hillary think?
The one-term, twice-impeached, four-time-indicted, ex-president Donald John Trump is now facing a combined 712½ years in prison sentences.
He’ll plead not guilty to all 91 criminal charges against him.
Was there any doubt he’d do that?
He may not appear to be humbled by it all on the outside. But he surely knows 2023 has been a nightmare for him.
The Trump Organization was fined $1.6 million for tax fraud back in January.
In March, Mr. Trump was indicted on 34 felony counts involving those hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.
On May 9, a jury found that Trump was liable for sexual abuse and defamation involving the advice columnist E. Jean Carroll. He was ordered to fork over $5 million.
He later filed a defamation lawsuit against Carroll. A judge threw out that lawsuit on Aug. 7.
On June 9, Trump was hit with a 40-count indictment having to do with those classified documents that were allegedly spread around Mar-A-Lago.
Down in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 1, he became the subject of another federal indictment, this time for his role in the events surrounding the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Of course, that leads us to the wide-ranging, 19-person Georgia election interference indictments that were handed down last Monday night.
What made Trump’s bumpy 2023 legal ride much bumpier was what happened on MSNBC the night those indictments were handed down.
The host, Rachel Maddow, introduced her esteemed guest: “All over the country right now, people are wondering what Hillary Rodham Clinton is thinking.”
Off-camera, there was a burst of laughter from, of all people, Hillary Clinton, who had been booked for an interview about something that had nothing to do with Donald Trump that night (a piece she wrote for The Atlantic titled, “The Weaponization of Loneliness”).
For her and Maddow, it was a delicious coincidence.
Initially, Clinton wasn’t holding back.
“Oh, I can’t believe this,” said the woman who had been the subject of “lock her up” chants in 2016 – who was beaming from ear to ear.
But then she measured her response.
“I don’t feel any satisfaction. I feel great – just great, profound sadness that we have a former president who has been indicted for so many charges that went right to the heart of whether or not our democracy would survive,” she said.
Sadly (for me), she never chanted “lock him up, lock him up” before the interview ended.
Instead, she concluded her remarks on the impending indictment with, “The only satisfaction may be that the system is working…”
That was too much for Team Trump to ignore.
Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, made it a point to find somebody on Fox News where she could hold up the Trump family honor.
She told Sean Hannity, “She went into that interview with Rachael Maddow, by the way, laughing. Let me tell you something: There is nothing funny about this,” she complained.
Well, I’d disagree with her about that. At a minimum, it was ironic that Clinton happened to appear on a night when Trump, once again, faced the prospects of getting “locked up.”
And if Clinton got a little chuckle out of it, well, that’s too bad.
Meanwhile, on CNN, there was the usual autopsy of yet another legal case filed against Trump.
One of CNN’s political commentators, Van Jones, asked a question every one of Trump’s opponents for the presidency should be asking, but, mysteriously, don’t.
“If you’re a Republican voter, if someone applied for a job facing 91 charges, would you hire them? You would not. Yet you may vote for someone with 91 charges against them. Unbelievable,” Jones concluded.
Aside from ex-New Jersey governor Chris Christie, none of Trump’s opponents appear to be willing to challenge Trump on his ever-growing legal problems.
Showing the guts to confront the obvious could be the first step to showing they’re ready to lead the nation through tough times.
Otherwise, they’re just hoping nobody will notice.
Edward A. Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter, and anchor for Entertainment Tonight, and 50-year TV news and newspaper veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.