Trump Charged 'Because of What He Represents'

Former US President Donald Trump pleaded not guilty on Thursday to four federal charges related to his alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The first hearing for the trial is expected on August 28.

The ex-POTUS was indicted earlier this week as part of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump's purported push to reverse the results of the election, which was followed by the January 6, 2021 US Capitol breach.

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“The case brought against Trump on Thursday is another example of judicial intervention in the electoral process,” Dr. Harvey Schantz, professor of political science at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh, said.

He added that the 45th US president’s indictment “goes to the core of the American political system because it involves the transfer of power” from a Republican Party president to a Democratic Party president. According to Schantz, such a change is “more momentous than ever because the two parties have very alternative views of public policy and markedly different supporters.”

The political scientist argued that the Trump indictment “divides people along party affiliations, exacerbating differences between Democrats and Republicans and between Trump and [US President Joe] Biden voters.”

Schantz pointed out that “the multiple cases” against the former American president “have strengthened his hold on the Republican presidential nomination, and contrary to conventional wisdom, have not as yet hurt Trump in the 2024 general election contest, in which polls have Trump and Biden running neck and neck.”

Dr. Nicholas Waddy, political analyst and Associate Professor of History at SUNY Alfred State College, for his part, told Sputnik that Thursday’s arraignment of Trump “[…] represents a new low for the Biden Administration, progressives, and the Deep State,” who he said “are, in effect, trying to criminalize dissent, criticism, differences of opinion, and political opposition.”

Waddy insisted that ex-US president “isn't being charged because of his actions, or his words, but because of who he is and what he represents.”

“The Deep State, including [Attorney General] Merrick Garland and [Special Counsel] Jack Smith, hates Trump with every fiber of its being. They are terrified that he might be able to defeat [President] Joe Biden in the 2024 election and win a second term as president, and thus they, and numerous other state and federal prosecutors, have decided on a strategy of ‘lawfare’ to kneecap him as a candidate,” the political analyst claimed.

According to him, these officials “would love to imprison Trump for the rest of his life, but their primary aim is to tie him up in legal knots throughout 2024 so that he cannot campaign effectively, and so that the entire election revolves around a debate about Donald Trump's criminality, rather than Joe Biden's performance in office.”

“The goal here - to interfere with the electoral process itself - is so transparent that no fair-minded person could deny it,” Waddy added. He claimed that “It isn't Trump that poses an ‘existential’ threat to Democrats, It's democracy itself, and that's what they are trying to snuff out.”

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