Donald J. Trump will make his first appearance in federal criminal court on Tuesday. But the former president has been
Donald J. Trump will make his first appearance in federal criminal court on Tuesday. But the former president has been pleading his case for days in a far friendlier venue — the court of Republican public opinion, where he continues to dominate the 2024 field.
For Mr. Trump and his team, there has been a sense of familiarity, even normalcy, in the chaos of facing a 37-count indictment in the classified documents case. After two House impeachments, multiple criminal investigations, the jailing of his business’s former accountant, his former fixer and his former campaign manager, and now two criminal indictments, Mr. Trump knows the drill, and so do his supporters.
The playbook is well-worn: Play the victim. Blame the “Deep State.” Claim selective prosecution. Punish Republicans who stray for disloyalty. Dominate the news. Ply small donors for cash.
His allies see the indictment as a chance to end the primary race before it has even begun in the minds of Republican voters by framing 2024 as an active battle with President Biden. Until now, the main pro-Trump super PAC, MAGA Inc., has focused heavily on Mr. Trump’s chief Republican rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, in its $20 million of ad spending. But that messaging has shifted after the indictment, with a new commercial already being shown that pits Mr. Trump directly against Mr. Biden.
The intended effect, said a person familiar with the strategy, is to present Mr. Trump as the party’s leader and the presumptive nominee who has already entered a head-to-head battle with Mr. Biden and his Justice Department, making Mr. Trump’s Republican opponents look small by comparison.
Mr. Trump, who flew to Florida on Monday ahead of his Tuesday appearance, is determined to serve as narrator of his own high-stakes legal drama. He posted on Truth Social to reveal he had been indicted minutes after his lawyer had called to alert him last week.
“The only good thing about it is it’s driven my poll numbers way up,” Mr. Trump told the Georgia Republican Party in a combative speech on Saturday.
So far, the indictment fallout appears to be moving along two parallel tracks in different directions, one political, the other legal.
Politically, Mr. Trump has continued to consolidate Republican support. In a CBS News poll on Sunday, only 7 percent of likely Republican primary voters initially said the indictment would change their view of Mr. Trump for the worse — and twice as many said it would change their view “for the better.” A full 80 percent of likely Republican voters said Mr. Trump should be able to serve even if convicted.
Legally, the specificity and initial evidence presented in the charging document that was unsealed on Friday showed the gravity of the case.
That evidence includes a recording of Mr. Trump claiming to have a classified document in front of him and acknowledging he no longer had the power to declassify it, photographs of documents strewn across a storage room floor — which Mr. Trump was particularly rankled by — surveillance footage, reams of subpoenaed texts from his own aides and notes from his own lawyer. “If even half of it is true, then he’s toast,” Bill Barr, who served as attorney general under Mr.
