Why 2022 was a tough year for Trump and 2023 may not be any better

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CNN —

It must seem like the year will never end for former President Donald Trump, whose actions seem to be getting him in public, painful and expensive ways.

Trump is notorious for shirking accountability, but he’s been put under the microscope in the second half of 2022 in a way that complicates things for the 2024 contender.

The FBI searched his Florida resort, where classified documents were seized. His business was found guilty of criminal tax fraud. Documents related to his tax returns were released by House Democrats, who are expected to release his actual returns before handing the committee gavel next year to Republicans, who won a smaller-than-expected majority under the influence. by Trump. Several Trump-backed candidates failed in key Senate races, costing Republicans their majority in that chamber.

The former president himself has not been charged with any crime. But a special counsel has been appointed at the Justice Department to oversee two Trump-related investigations into the storage of documents at Mar-a-Lago and the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

Trump denounced the House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection, and his most ardent supporters tried to stonewall it, but its damning 800-page detailed report, detailing his efforts, was hard to ignore. to overturn the 2020 presidential election and his role in inspiring rioters to attack the Capitol.

And even though Trump’s criminal committee referrals to the Justice Department are largely symbolic, the former president still has to wait and see what comes of the DOJ’s own twin probes.

In the meantime, there are no signs that the former president who launched his third nonconsecutive presidential bid last month has done much to clear the GOP field, with other hopefuls mulling their options over the holidays.

The ongoing year-end revelations that fade away in the face of Trumps power include major developments like the January 6 committee report and smaller details.

Hidden in the court documents is the inconvenient truth that even his loudest acolytes at Fox News know his 2020 election fantasy is wrong.

Sean Hannity, the Fox News opinion host, admitted that he doesn’t believe for a second the alleged hoaxes he helped push.

It might have been nice for Fox viewers to hear that from Hannity, but the admission came off the air and in a deposition as part of Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against the conservative network, according to New York Times.

Hannity, as we know from the text messages, was in close contact with Trumps then-chief of staff, Mark Meadows, in the days leading up to January 6.

That conservative elites in Trumps circle know the truth adds context to the fraud fears they’ve pushed to persuade Republican lawmakers to pass new election security laws in key states.

The release of Trumps tax information, without his consent, by House Democrats confirmed what anyone could have guessed that he paid no federal income tax in the year he was in office.

Even in years like 2018, where he paid about $1 million in federal taxes, the rate he paid, a little more than 4%, is equal to half of what American taxpayers pay.

Special tax rules for real estate barons, which Congress seems unable to address, help explain why Trumps tax bill looks so different than that of regular wage-earning Americans. But the result is that the former president looks like a tax avoider.

Trump broke with tradition in 2016 by refusing to release any of his personal tax returns. But his team immediately tried to weaponize the release of his information. If this injustice can happen to President Trump, it can happen to all Americans for no reason, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said last week.

Trump made sure his influence was felt in the 2022 midterms, but after Republicans failed to get a red wave, some members of his party blamed him for the GOP’s poor showing.

He must now contend with polls like CNN’s from earlier this month, which showed that a majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents want the party to nominate someone other than Trump in 2024. Their top pick for an alternative? Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The GOP governor, who won a resounding re-election last month, enjoys stronger favorability ratings than Trump among Republicans, according to a CNN survey.

That’s bad news for a man who jumped to the front of the 2024 Republican field and launched another presidential bid at the exact moment he was starting to look politically vulnerable.

Even his most ardent supporters are getting tired of some of his antics. The $99 Trump-themed digital trading card timed the NFT market all wrong and drew derision even from his staunchest supporters.

I can’t do it anymore, complained Stephen Bannon, the former adviser who was sentenced to four months in prison for contempt of Congress after ignoring a subpoena from the committee on Jan. 6. (He is appealing that sentence.)

Many of the issues that have dogged Trump in 2022 will not be over by the start of the new year and may even escalate.

His business, which was convicted of tax fraud in late 2022, also faces civil charges from the New York attorney general in 2023.

In the face of election fraud, Trump doesn’t just have to worry about Special Counsel Jack Smith. A special Atlanta-area grand jury investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to subvert the 2020 election in the Peach State has begun writing its final report, CNN reported earlier this month. . That will serve as a mechanism for the panel to recommend whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should pursue charges.

As Trump envisions himself returning to the White House, one of the last bipartisan efforts lawmakers agreed to this month was an update to the Electoral Count Act, making it clear that attempts like Trump’s after 2020 to exploit outdated language in federal election law and undermine the Electoral College can never happen again.

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