If you thought the law would stop rump you thought wrong

PLEASE don’t expect the law to save America from Donald Trump. Not for the first time, he is proving to be a talented escapologist.

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I always doubted that Trump would be locked up by the next presidential election but the most serious criminal cases against him may not even reach trial by November 4, 2024. One by one, the bulwarks against his return to power are toppling.

This week marks a critical juncture in the series of Trump trials. Tomorrow, the former president is expected to appear in a New York court in the hope of persuading a judge to dismiss charges that he paid hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election. He claims that the case brought by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg is a naked attempt to interfere in his latest presidential campaign. Yet if Trump’s bid fails and the judge sets an early date for trial, legal experts think it is the weakest of the four criminal cases against him, more deserving of a misdemeanour than a crime. Trump intends to play the victim by claiming Daniels — or “Horseface” as he gallantly calls her — was attempting to extort money.

He will also float the “Melania defence”, claiming that he was merely trying to protect his wife from embarrassing allegations that he slept with a porn star only four months after she gave birth to Barron, now 17. He has a point. If Melania has forgiven him after all these years, who are we to judge?

Simultaneously, an astonishing court drama is unfolding in Atlanta, where Trump faces sprawling charges of obstructing the last election, brought under ambitious racketeering laws by Fani Willis, district attorney for Fulton County, Georgia.

In an act of monumental political stupidity, it has emerged that she is sleeping with Nathan Wade, a relatively inexperienced suburban defence lawyer whom she appointed as a lead prosecutor against Trump and has been paid a handsome $653,000 to date for his work. What was she thinking, I hear you scream?