Trump Cried ‘Lock Her Up.’ Instead, He and His Friends Got Charged With Crimes.

Former President Donald Trump loves calling for other people to be charged with crimes. Instead, today, he’ll be formally accused of committing a few himself.  

Trump told his 2016 Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, she’d “be in jail” if he won the  election, in the middle of a presidential debate. He accused former President Barack Obama of committing “treason.” He slammed President Joe Biden’s “crime family.” He called a journalist a “criminal” for failing to report news Trump wanted to hear.

But today, Trump will be arraigned in a Manhattan courtroom shortly after 2:00 p.m. EST, on charges widely expected to arise from a $130,000 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels. 

Now that Trump is the one being charged with a crime, Trump and his allies are blasting the move as an unacceptable politicization of the criminal justice system, overlooking the many times Trump lobbied, inside and outside the White House, for his political opponents to be investigated and criminally charged. 

They’re also glossing over the fact that Trump is hardly alone among his friends: A truly staggering number of people Trump likes to pal around with—including his advisors, lawyers and top supporters—have also been found guilty of committing a wide variety of crimes, from financial fraud to lying under oath and more. 

Viewed in that light, Trump is just the latest of his friend group to catch a case.

Trump’s longtime Chief Financial Officer, Allen Weisselberg, is currently wrapping up a five-month sentence in the notorious Rikers Island prison complex after entering a guilty plea on 15 criminal counts ranging from grand larceny to tax fraud. 

Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen is now expected to be a prime witness against Trump at the former president’s upcoming criminal trial. Cohen was sentenced to three years in federal prison after pleading guilty to eight criminal counts, including tax evasion and orchestrating unlawful contributions to Trump’s presidential campaign. Cohen said he was directed by Trump to set up hush money payments to women who said they slept with Trump before the 2016 election. (Trump denies all charges, and has repeatedly insisted he did nothing wrong.) 

Trump’s former campaign and White House advisor, Steve Bannon, was convicted of contempt of Congress last summer, and is now defending himself from a new round of criminal fraud charges related to a  private non-profit group that aimed to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. New York prosecutors accuse Bannon of defrauding donors to a charity We Build The Wall. Bannon has pleaded not guilty. 

Then there’s Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, who was sentenced to seven years following his convictions for financial crimes, only to be pardoned by Trump. Trump also pardoned his longtime political advisor Roger Stone, who’d been convicted at a jury trial on charges of obstruction, false statements, and witness tampering relating to the Congressional investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. 

Even Trump’s business has been found guilty of committing crimes. 

Trump’s company was convicted of all 17 criminal counts against it during a trial in late 2022, which took place in the very same courtroom where Trump’s personal criminal case is now set to play out. He’ll even have the same New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan overseeing his personal case. 

Trump’s criminal drama in Manhattan, of course, isn’t the only legal jeopardy he’s facing. 

He’s also being investigated by an Atlanta-area prosecutor for his attempts to reverse his 2020 election defeat in Georgia. And a federal special counsel named Jack Smith is overseeing two investigations. One concerns whether Trump broke the law by stashing secret government documents at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida; and the other concerns whether Trump committed crimes while trying to stay in power despite losing the 2020 election.