Former President Donald Trump’s calculated move to declare a 2024 presidential bid this November may have been designed to seize back the initiative.
But instead, it has been overshadowed by his various legal battles and an ill-fated dinner date that has blown up in his face.
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Trump was the first major Republican contender to toss his hat in the ring on Nov. 15, announcing his presidential campaign two years ahead of the next general election.
But the 76-year-old’s announcement came just days after the GOP experienced a lackluster midterm outing at a time when party members have been considering trading the former president for a younger model, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL). Nearly 63% of registered voters prefer the Florida governor over Trump, according to a recent Marquette University Law School poll, though there is still plenty of time for public opinion to shift between now and the GOP presidential primary for 2024.
Just three days following Trump’s major announcement event at his Mar-a-Lago home and resort club, which was raided by the FBI in August after a judge signed off on a search warrant request, the Justice Department gave another major update on its investigations into Trump on Nov. 18 — the appointment of a special counsel to decide whether he should be charged in connection to the criminal investigations looking into alleged retention of national security information, theft of government documents, and obstruction of justice.
Attorney General Merrick Garland explicitly said he was moved to appoint a special counsel, DOJ veteran Jack Smith, after Trump announced he was running, as well as the fact that President Joe Biden also has signaled an intent to run.
Then, on Nov. 22, Trump was dealt another legal blow by the Supreme Court after justices declined to shield his tax records, which he had fought to hide in court battles for nearly three years.
The House Ways and Means Committee, which was cleared by the IRS to receive six years of Trump’s tax documents, met on Thursday to discuss how to handle said records before Republicans take control the House in January.
Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA) chairs the committee and declined to tell CNN on Wednesday if he had possession of the returns, saying federal law prohibits him from discussing the state of the returns and also declining to say if the committee would release the returns publicly.
Between Trump’s third presidential campaign bid launch and his slate of court misfortunes came an even greater public relations nightmare — his dinner with Kanye West on the week of Thanksgiving that was accompanied by the infamous white nationalist Nick Fuentes.
Trump was excoriated by Democrats and members of his own party for the meeting, though Trump was adamant that his dinner was intended to be solely with the rapper, who now goes by Ye, to offer him advice amid the performer’s financial tumult.
Trump’s explanation didn’t matter much to critics, especially Trump’s Jewish allies, considering Ye had already been wrestling with the media fallout over his “deathcon 3” tweet about Jewish people from weeks before. Ye’s public downfall culminated with remarks on InfoWars on Wednesday, when he declared, “I see good things about [Adolf] Hitler,” a statement that made host Alex Jones visibly uncomfortable.
The latest legal tumult for Trump came on Dec. 1 after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled against a lower court judge’s decision to assign a third-party review over specific documents seized from Mar-a-Lago.
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The assignment of a special master to review the seized documents was one of Trump’s early court victories over the matter after the DOJ sought to investigate alleged stolen materials taken after his time in the Oval Office, coupled with its inquiry into efforts to disrupt the 2020 election.
Trump can still ask the full 11th C
ircuit for a new hearing or appeal the Supreme Court, but based on the three-judge panel’s excoriation of U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon‘s decision to appoint a special master, the former president could be on a tough road ahead to maintain his third-party review.
