The legal walls appear to be closing in on Donald Trump. Who knows if his legal troubles have finally caught up to him, but based on his ramblings on Truth Social, it looks like he’s starting to feel the pressure.
Last week on social media, Trump claimed that he could be arrested as early as today, March 21st. However, there are also rumors that the Manhattan District Attorney’s office may still interview a couple more people regarding their case concerning Trump’s potentially illegal hush money payment to pornstar Stormy Daniels. His possible arrest may be a week or more away, but regardless of when or if it arrives, reports have come out saying that the FBI, Secret Service, and other law enforcement agencies are preparing for an arrest.
The screw is turning on Trump, and as the squeeze gets tighter and tighter it will become harder to predict the desperate acts he might engage in to avoid arrest.
Thus far his actions have been entirely predictable. He has raged on social media, declared the investigation as partisan attacks, and has encouraged his supporters to protest and riot on his behalf. The United States has already traversed this terrain on January 6, so while his actions might be frightening and deplorable, they aren’t surprising.
Likewise, the Republican Party’s defense of Trump, lambasting of the investigation, and argument that Trump should not be arrested because it would only further sow division are also predictable and unsurprising.
Thus far, Trump’s and the GOP’s responses to his potential arrest have not veered from the script they have cultivated over the last seven years, but I think Trump may have another surprise up his sleeve.
I think he might attempt to flee the country.
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Ways to Avoid Prison
By all accounts, Trump is terrified of going to jail. In addition to the indignity of getting fingerprinted, taking a mugshot, and wearing a prison jumpsuit; he’s also a pampered germaphobe.
During his presidency, he allegedly called the White House a dump and complained about how small it was. A prison cell would likely be unimaginable to Trump if he could hardly tolerate the White House. Additionally, his fear of germs is well known, and he refrains from shaking hands and other forms of casual, appropriate human contact for fear of contracting an illness.
Yet more fundamentally than his phobias and pampered lifestyle, Trump does not want to go to jail because it will make him look like a loser. He attempted a coup d’etat after losing the presidency because he did not want to be considered a loser, so the lengths he would take to avoid prison could be gargantuan. Going to prison, in his eyes, would make him the ultimate loser, and that is surely unfathomable to him. He will attempt to avoid jail at all costs, so fleeing the country should be considered within the realm of possibility.
Once we acknowledge that attempting to flee may be something Trump might try, we then need to think about how he might be able to attempt this absurd and globally significant endeavor. Tragically, the answer to this question is pretty simple: he will try to fly away aboard his private plane.
Trump’s private plane, which he calls “Trump Force One,” is a Boeing 757 that can fly over 4,400 miles on one fuel tank. A direct flight from New York City to St. Petersburg, Russia is only 4,200 miles.
Additionally, in anticipation of his 2024 presidential run, the plane has received numerous upgrades because he uses it to fly around the country for his rallies. Not only does Trump have a means to escape and a place he could escape to, but he has updated his plane and readily uses it.
Trump boarding “Trump Force One” would not raise much suspicion because he does it all the time. Americans could watch him board his plane and wholeheartedly believe that he was flying to a rally somewhere in the midwest, only to soon thereafter get a news alert that his plane never arrived at its anticipated destination and that he is believed to be flying somewhere over the Atlantic and heading to an unknown destination.
The next big question we must ask pertains to his accomplices. Someone would need to fly the plane. Someone would need to separate Trump from the law enforcement officials who might stand in his way as he makes his escape. We have to wonder if there are people so committed to Trump that they would be willing to live in absentia along with him. Once he and anyone else with him leave the country, they may not be able to come back.
Under normal circumstances, one would assume that Trump would struggle to find these accomplices, but as the January 6th insurrection has shown, it is a fool’s errand to underestimate the chaotic lengths that some Americans will go to in order to defend Trump. Many of his January 6th supporters are already serving jail time, and while some may now regret their decision others may not. When you have supporters who are willing to go to jail on your behalf, then those same supporters may gleefully choose to live in absentia too.
Not only did Trump have a mob of supporters attack the U.S. Capitol, but he also had multiple sympathizers within the government and the Secret Service. Trump even believed that his supporters within the Secret Service would escort him to the U.S. Capitol so that he could be alongside his mob as they stormed the building. When the Secret Service agents changed plans at the last minute and brought him back to the White House, Trump flew into a fit of rage.
Who’s to say Trump does not have a close-knit group of 5 to 10 supporters within law enforcement who feel that not going to the U.S. Capitol and going back to the White House was a mistake? I would not be surprised if these Trump supporters are more than happy to rectify the “mistakes” of January 6th by helping Trump flee the country.
Since Trump already has both a plane and an accessible destination, he does not need an army to help him flee the country. A small group of diehard supporters may be all he would need.
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The Muscovite President
If Trump succeeded in escaping the United States and landed in Russia, it would set off an international firestorm of epic proportions. Russia is at war with Ukraine and the United States is arguably Ukraine’s biggest ally, yet America’s support for Ukraine falls along a party divide. President Joe Biden and the Democrats are vocal supporters of Ukraine, but the Republican Party consists of many pro-Russia politicians and congress members who question the importance of America’s involvement in the war.
Trump being so overtly pro-Russia that he fled there for safe haven to avoid imprisonment would radically change the dynamics of a war that is growing in geopolitical significance with each passing day.
Additionally, if Trump landed in Russia, he would not stop running for the presidency. There is no rule stating that presidential candidates need to be physically in the United States to run for president.
The only requirements to run for the presidency are being a natural born citizen, being over the age of 35, and having been a resident of the United States for fourteen years. I suspect that Trump’s opposition will invoke the residency requirement to make Trump ineligible, but who’s to say it would succeed in this unprecedented situation.
From Russia, Trump could campaign for the presidency and invoke the false sense of victimization that many of his supporters feel. He would illegitimately proclaim that this “attack” upon him is the same type of “attack” that the liberals and “woke” Americans will inflict upon his supporters. He would tell them that unless they fight back that they will lose their country, and he would use the example of himself being in Russia as proof that America could be taken away from his supporters (a majority of which are white Americans without a college degree).
From absentia, he could launch a campaign of fear and violence that echoes the rhetoric of Confederate leaders who believed that violence and terror were the only means of preventing the South from getting taken away from them.
Yet, in Trump’s case, we would be dealing with a national and international crisis over the fate of the presidency and the control of the entire United States, and not merely the control of a section of the United States.
Also, he would proclaim that the only way to save America or “Make America Great Again,” would be for him to be re-elected as president and return to the United States as a hero returning from exile.
Living in absentia might keep him out of jail and give him the chance to be a “winner” if he wins the 2024 presidential election. And even if he lost the election, he’d probably prefer to live amongst Vladimir Putin’s cabal of oligarchs in Russia which also includes former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych.
The specter of a Trump indictment and arrest in the near future has probably made a lot of Americans believe that Trump’s dystopian existence might have hit the end of the road, but we need to remain aware that Trump has always been willing to go to previously unimaginable lengths to get his way.
If we are not careful, the road Trump might lead us down could be darker and far more terrifying than most Americans could imagine.
My book THE CRIME WITHOUT A NAME was released on October 12, 2021, and NPR has picked it as one of the top books of the year!
You can order the book—including the audiobook—and watch recordings of my book tour discussions at Eaton and the New York Public Library at thecrimewithoutaname.com