By Robert Hornak
Heading into the 2024 election, Democrats had what they thought was a great way to defeat Donald Trump, even after it appeared he was immune to their political attacks. They planned to go after him with civil and criminal cases in friendly jurisdictions to tie him up fighting legal proceedings instead of fighting political battles.
The only problem was it didn’t work.
Not only did Trump manage to keep most of the prosecutors chasing their tails all year, ever the showman he managed to turn every day in court into a political opportunity to dominate the news cycle with everyone talking about him all day, every day. He even pulled off a what most of see as a successful rally in the Bronx, once again flipping the political bird at his haters.
The one pyric victory they got, their holy grail for the election, was to win one criminal conviction to call Trump a felon. And they did, by contorting a case based on bookkeeping records for legal payments to his then attorney, that they dressed up as “hush money” payments to an adult actress and morphed from misdemeanors into felonies.
They had an uber-partisan DA push the case through a kangaroo court in one of the most liberal venues in the country. And presto! A conviction. But even that didn’t work, as many legal scholars decried the partisan verdict and predicted it would easily be overturned on appeal.
So, when all the lawfare has failed, what do the Democrats do? Try, try again. Now, on cue, they are filing another lawsuit against Trump based on his response to Kamala Harris bringing up the Central Park Five rape case.
The case from April 19, 1989, was extremely controversial at the time NYC was dealing with out-of-control crime and a skyrocketing murder rate. The details of the case are well documented. Some of the teens confessed on video, then later recanted their confessions. They were all convicted on numerous charges, one on attempted murder due to the severity of the beating. Then in 2001 Matias Reyes, who was already serving 33 years to life for rape and murder, confessed to raping the jogger and acting alone. His DNA was a match and the convictions of the other five were vacated, despite protests from investigators who were convinced of the five’s participation.
Donald Trump was involved by running full page ads later that April 1989, in the four major daily newspapers that called for the return of the death penalty for murderers. The ads didn’t mention the defendants or the jogger case, but connections were made.
This was what Harris brought up in the debate, claiming that Trump called for the execution of the five. This weak attempt at an “October surprise” by filing another lawfare right before the election won’t have the desired effect – again. And since the likelihood that defamation – the damaging of someone’s good reputation – is unlikely to be proven, this is yet another exercise in futility generating headlines that will likely work for Trump instead of against him.
Robert 
Hornak is a professional political consultant who has previously served as the Deputy Director of the Republican Assembly Leader’s NYC office and as Executive Director of the Queens Republican Party. He can be reached at rahornak@gmail.com.
