Editorial: Calm before the Storm

The spectre of extramarital dalliances hasn’t stopped dogging the Oval Office. Most recently, former President Donald Trump found himself embroiled in a seamy case involving payment of hush money to porn actor Stormy Daniels. On Friday, the third week of testimony in the trial drew to a close after jurors heard Daniels’ dramatic account, while prosecutors prepped up for their most crucial witness: Michael Cohen, Trump's former attorney. Daniels’ recollection of an alleged sexual encounter with Trump was a crucial building block for prosecutors, who are seeking to show that the Republican and his allies buried unflattering stories in the waning weeks of the 2016 presidential election in an effort to illegally influence the race.

This criminal case could be the only one of four against the presumptive Republican presidential nominee to go to trial before voters decide this November whether to send him back to the White House. Trump has pleaded not guilty and depicted himself as the victim of political entrapment. But Trump is not isolated in the pantheon of Presidents who have been called out on account of sexual misdemeanours. Back in 1998, the world was rocked by the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky sex scandal, when Clinton made his now-infamous statement that he did not engage in sexual relations with the 25-year-old intern at the White House. He was later acquitted on all impeachment charges involving perjury and obstruction of justice in a 21-day U.S. Senate trial.

What sticks out like a sore thumb is how Clinton was let off with a slap on the wrist — civil contempt of court, and also fined $90,000. And that was on account of a technicality as Clinton feigned ignorance about ‘anything other than’ the agreed definition of sexual relations, as per the law. In a move straight out of a Hollywood flick, just days after Clinton testified, the US initiated Operation Infinite Reach, striking al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, and a pharma unit in Sudan, in retaliation for the 1998 US embassy bombings. Republicans lashed out at the President alleging that he ordered the attacks as a diversion, which happened to be the plot point of a Hollywood film Wag the Dog, which had a fictional president embarking on a fictitious war in Albania to deflect attention from a sex scandal.

However, these ‘deviations from the norm’ have a precedent in the private exploits of John F Kennedy, who believe it or not, has a Wiki subcategory dedicated to his mistresses, who include Marlene Dietrich and Marilyn Monroe. The latter had famously serenaded Kennedy on his 45th birthday with a highly-provocative rendition of Happy Birthday to You. One could obviously argue that what a President does in his personal time has no bearing on the office he holds. But Trump’s case happens to be one that involves non-consensual encounters.

Trump was in fact, accused of sexual assault by as many as 25 women during the 2016 election, and he denied the allegations, and went on to become President. A hot microphone had in fact caught him bragging about groping women, which he later dismissed as locker room talk. An infinite supply of money and clout has ensured that the 45th former President, with all the charges lined up against him, is still raring to challenge President Biden, come November. Bringing Trump to justice is not just a legal requirement at this point in time, but essential for the Oval Office to maintain its ‘stronger than oak’ moral fibre.