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2022 will soon be in the history books and some will say not a moment too soon. So what’s in store for the new year? We asked our opinions team to share predictions for the year ahead. Straight Arrow News contributor David Pakman sees an indictment coming for former President Donald Trump, which might cement him as the first former president to make a bid for the White House while facing charges.
My prediction for 2023 is that Donald Trump, failed former president, gets indicted. There are a number of ways that this could happen: There could be a federal indictment coming. There could be an indictment in New York coming. There could be an indictment in Georgia coming. Those are the three largest possibilities and most likely possibilities.
I am not making any prediction as to whether Donald Trump will settle, will go to trial, will be found guilty, will serve time in prison — actually, my prediction is he will not serve time in prison — but I do believe that during the 2023 calendar year Donald Trump is going to be indicted.
Now the reality is that Trump could be indicted for so many different things. Probably dozens of instances of interfering and obstructing all sorts of different investigations during his first four years. You could make a case for sedition as part of Trump’s inciting and insurrection. You could make a case for significant criminality and Donald Trump acting in the state of Georgia to try to overturn the election results. Remember, Joe Biden won Georgia in 2020. Trump tried to steal it. He said, ‘I need 11,000 votes, give me a break,’ and acted and tried to strong-arm people.
There are so many possible crimes that Donald Trump has committed and I believe at a certain point at the end of the day in 2023, it’s going to end with Donald Trump indicted.
I do not yet know — and some of the interesting questions are — how will this affect Trump’s 2024 run? It’s been largely inactive. He’s mostly stayed home since announcing the candidacy in November. Polling is in the toilet, losing to Ron DeSantis in many polls, and Ron DeSantis hasn’t even announced that he’s running for anything. And so it’s not looking particularly good.
So there are sort of two ways to think about this. If Trump is indicted, will it force him out? Or if Trump is indicted will it provide an opportunity, a welcome opportunity, for Donald Trump to bail on what is so far a completely failing 2024 campaign?
