Opinion | Democrats can’t let Donald Trump’s lies about his Manhattan trial go unchallenged

We can expect that former president and criminal defendant Donald Trump is going to claim every day — maybe even multiple times a day — that his criminal trial scheduled to begin in Manhattan on Monday was orchestrated by President Joe Biden. Trump used that line of attack at a rally five days before a Manhattan grand jury indicted him on New York state charges on March 30, 2023. Trump said the imminent charges were part of “the Biden regime’s weaponization of our system of justice.”

He’s repeated the weaponization lie multiple times since then. For example, two weeks ago after a hearing in that New York state case, Trump, referring to all the trials he’s facing, accused Biden of the “weaponization of our government to try to knock out” his “political opponent.” Tuesday, he said Biden has “weaponized the Justice Department.” A president has no authority to bring a state charge against anyone, but Trump said Tuesday that “every one of these trials is run by the DOJ and the White House. Every single one.”

What’s been the response from the Biden campaign and other Democratic leaders to Trump’s repeated lie? Mostly silence. Apparently, that is by design. When Democratic National Committee Chair Jamie Harrison appeared on my Sirius XM show Friday, I asked him if the DNC or Democratic leaders would be countering Trump lies about Biden masterminding this and other prosecutions. Harrison said Trump “wants Joe Biden to get involved” in his court cases and that “we can’t take the bait.”

But if Democrats don’t respond, then all that some of the public will hear about the origin of these prosecutions is Trump’s claim that they’re Biden’s doing. If Democrats don’t respond with the truth, then it will be that much easier for the public to be misled.

Trump’s obvious goal in lying about Biden’s involvement is to convince voters to ignore any guilty verdicts any jury might return. Trump has to have seen the polls that say a conviction will hurt him badly in November. For example, a February Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll found that 53% of voters in key swing states say they won’t vote for Trump if he’s been convicted of a crime. According to a Politico report from last month, “By a more than 2-1 margin, respondents said that a conviction would make them less likely to support Trump (32 percent) as opposed to more likely (13 percent). Notably, more than a third of independents said it would reduce their likelihood to support Trump.”

Of course, we know a criminal conviction is unlikely to deter the MAGA faithful, but a Reuters poll released this week says that about a quarter of Republicans say they won’t vote for Trump if a jury convicts him of a felony. If Trump is convicted of one of more felonies, even if only half of those surveyed stay true to what they said in that poll, it could make it next to impossible for Trump to win in November. Consequently, Trump’s No. 1 priority as his criminal trials begin is to delegitimize the cases.

That is why Democratic leaders must counter Trump’s lies on a daily basis. And they have the best response to Trump’s made-up claim that Biden is responsible for Trump’s prosecution: the ironclad fact that the case originated with Trump’s own lawyer when Trump was president and that Trump’s multiple attempts to thwart or delay the prosecution are why it’s getting started so late.

Trump’s own lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty in August 2018 (that is, while his former boss was president) to federal crimes that included arranging the “hush money” payments to adult film actor Stormy Daniels on Trump’s behalf in violation of federal election laws. That is when the Manhattan district attorney who preceded Alvin Bragg opened a criminal investigation.

However, that investigation by the district attorney was stopped when federal prosecutors in Trump’s Department of Justice said it was investigating the same conduct. When the DOJ signaled in August 2019 that the Manhattan district attorney could resume its investigation, Trump, through his lawyers, delayed that investigation with a lawsuit that ended in July 2020 with the U.S. Supreme ruling that the presidency doesn’t shield Trump from a criminal investigation. And delayed it with yet another suit that ended with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the district attorney could have Trump’s tax returns.

Democrats should also emphasize that neither Biden nor Bragg indicted Trump. He was accused of committing 34 felonies by a group of his fellow Americans who heard testimony from people including Cohen and Stormy Daniels.

Democrats should be deciding how to best counter Trump’s nonstop lies about his New York trial being something orchestrated by Biden — daily press releases, social media posts or videos — but they shouldn’t be deciding if to counter them. When Trump is lying so often, they cannot afford to remain silent.

This article was originally published on MSNBC.com