In recent comments at a political event geared towards Black conservatives, former President Donald Trump, who remains the front-runner for this year’s presidential nomination from the GOP, claimed that his mugshot from a Georgia criminal case is winning him some support among Black Americans.
“The mug shot, we’ve all seen the mug shot, and you know who embraced it more than anybody else? The Black population. It’s incredible. You see Black people walking around with my mug shot, you know they do shirts,” Trump remarked, per CNN. He was speaking at a gathering hosted by the Black Conservative Federation.
Elsewhere in his speech, Trump compared his treatment to what he characterized as Black Americans systematically facing injustice… getting suspiciously close to the concept of critical race theory about which some Republicans express such fury in other contexts, even seeking restrictions on the discussion in education.
In general, Trump’s descriptions for his current slate of courtroom hurdles, including four criminal cases with a first trial next month, are extreme and wide-ranging. He’s compared those opposite himself politically and in such contexts to Communists, Nazis, and corrupt conspirators in “third world” countries. He claims involvement by President Biden’s team in proceedings he is facing and alleges that attempts at election interference underlie the both civil and criminal cases.
In fact, there’s no evidence of prosecutors targeting the 2024 election — in which Trump announced his participation after investigations underlying his charges were already known, just like there’s no evidence of actual involvement in any case at any level by Biden or his team. And Trump had and still has access to a wide suite of procedural protections of the sort normally available for individuals subject to the justice system. His case alleging attempted election interference wasn’t put indefinitely on hold amid appeals from Trump because of secret, anti-Trump conspiracies!
