On Tuesday afternoon, former President Donald Trump pleaded not guilty to 37 criminal charges related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents at an arraignment in Miami, Florida. His Mar-a-Lago estate, where a FBI raid recovered classified documents in a questionable state of security last August, is in Florida, as well. The charges, rolled out in exposé fashion last Friday, detailed the alarming level to which classified documents -more than a dozen of which were labeled ‘Top Secret’- were possessed and subsequently mishandled by the former President. You can read more here.
In addition to this indictment, former president Donald Trump is facing criminal charges of business malpractice and falsifying business records in New York and is undergoing an investigation for his alleged attempt to interfere in the Georgia state electoral process during the 2020 presidential election.
Following his arraignment in Miami, Trump traveled back up north to his property in Bedminster, New Jersey, and made a public statement on his innocence and who the true perpetrators were. Primarily targeting current US president Joe Biden, Trump repeatedly referred to Biden’s corruption in the alleged Burisma bribery scheme and Biden’s own document retention investigation. Trump accused the Biden administration of political assassination, claiming that Biden is greenlighting “political persecution like something straight out of a fascist or communist nation,” by having “his top political opponent arrested and charged.” It all fits his narrative of being the target of commie tyrants and presents dangerous ammunition for his cause.
Which brings me to my main point: have we given into the Trump rhetoric simply by reporting on it? By framing him as the villain and the driver of corruption and evil in our democracy, have we strengthened his brand? His tool of persuasion over his millions of blindly loyal supporters? Unequivocally yes.
I’m not going to sit here at my laptop and implore people to stop reporting on the Trump indictment and upcoming trial. That would be bad journalism, as it’s news that people want to and should be headily aware of. However, to return to Trump’s point about political assassination, it would be easy for us to say that he’s blaming whoever he can now that the prosecutor’s finger is fixed on him, but that can’t be the end-all-be-all of this case. It’s nuanced and it’s important to recognize that fact.
Rather than further feeding the rhetoric of a scorned, victimized politician, we should pay further attention to similar cases against other political players. To more clearly state my point, we offer a bias in unequal reporting that those vying for power can use as a tool in their favor. Even if the goal is in honest reporting and sharing the news, the media provides a tool for politicians to work the machine in their favor, which is what Trump has done since he first announced his candidacy in 2015, and it’s what he’ll continue to do through the trial and into the primaries this time next year.
Now that Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges, coming next will be the solidifying of each sides’ legal teams and building of cases. Trump vows to continue on his warpath back to the White House in his primary campaign.
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