Donald Trump announced his latest indictment last night in front of a painting of a guy literally twirling his moustache. “I am an innocent man,” the former president insisted, next to this cartoon shorthand for villainy. The oil painting in question is not so much an artwork as a lift-music version of an artwork, and seems to hang at Trump’s Bedminster golf club in New Jersey – which is the same place he buried his former wife Ivana, as all admirers of both exquisite taste and private-cemetery tax breaks may already know. Either way, Ivana’s there, right near the first tee. It’s what she would have wanted.
Even so, it must be said the Espionage Act is one of the not-great laws to allegedly break, rather like obstruction of justice, of which Trump also stands accused. Individuals convicted of those felonies can face long stretches in facilities that are often entirely oil painting-free, and have never even been offered the chance to host a golf major. They do, however, have “lively” canteens and communal areas, which could make Mr Clubhouse feel at home.
In terms of where Trump himself is, it’s complicated. He’s the hot favourite for the Republican nomination, and also the defendant or potential defendant in a number of ongoing legal actions. There simply isn’t the space to recap all of them, but the standouts are the charges of hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels, on which he has already been indicted by Manhattan state prosecutors, and the federal criminal investigation into his attempts to overturn the 2020 election results, which remains in train and for which Smith is also the special counsel.
