I’m going to bet you probably don’t know much about Yahya Jammeh, who was president of The Gambia from 1996 to 2017. The Gambia, a tiny former British colony on the coast of west Africa (about the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined with a population of 2,468,569) is surrounded by Senegal on 3 sides and faces the Atlantic on the other. Jammeh came to power in 1994 in a military coup when he was just 29 years old. An African version of Trump, he was a rapist, anti-immigrant xenophobe, and an authoritarian kleptocrat who was “elected” president in 1996, 2001, 2006, and 2011 and defeated in 2016. He had his own Proud Boys-like thugs, the Green Boys… and, like Trump, stole millions from the country. Unlike Trump, he’s currently livin’ the life in another tiny authoritarian hellhole, Equatorial Guinea. When he was defeated in 2016, he refused to accept the results and annulled the election, claiming “unacceptable abnormalities.” Like Trump, he had the country’s corrupt Supreme Court in his back pocket. The Economic Community of West African States said it would intervene militarily is he didn’t relinquish the presidency. He dragged it out as long as he could but eventually was forced out of office and out of the country. He had his own version of Mar-A-Lago in Potomac, Maryland (that was eventually seized, just as the one in Florida will be some day).
Why bring him up today? One reason: he’s a prime example of an incumbent who embraced his notorious criminal reputation. Throughout his rule, Jammeh cultivated an image of being a larger-than-life figure, often presenting himself as a mystic and a strongman. He made outlandish claims, such as having the ability to cure AIDS with herbal remedies, and used state resources to perpetuate a cult of personality, leaning into his image as a defiant and invincible leader and portraying himself as an historically indispensable figure— the only one capable of leading and protecting the nation.
And Jammeh is far from the only national leader to lean into his controversial and outlaw image during his campaigns. Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe used his liberation war credentials to bolster his image as a revolutionary hero who fought against colonial oppression. He framed himself as a perpetual rebel standing up against Western imperialism and neo-colonialism, although his cult-like party, ZANU-PF, used intimidation and threats of violence as part of those campaigns.
And let’s not forget Silvio Berlusconi (Italy) and Rodrigo Duterte (Philippines), two more national leaders who leaned into their bad boy images during campaigns. Duterte had been mayor of Davao City for over two decades, where he gained a reputation for his hardline, fascistic stance on crime and his controversial, extrajudicial, methods of maintaining order. When he ran for president, he embraced his image as a tough, no-nonsense leader and openly bragged about his role in extrajudicial killings of criminals and was referred to as "The Punisher" in the media. His tough-guy persona appealed to voters frustrated with crime and corruption. During his 2016 presidential campaign, he leaned heavily into this outlaw image and promised to eradicate crime and corruption within six months, even if it meant bypassing legal processes. His incendiary rhetoric, which included admitting to killing suspected criminals and threatening to kill more, resonated with many primitive, MAGA-like voters who saw him as a decisive and fearless leader. Berlusconi, a corrupt billionaire media mogul, served as Italy's on-again, off-again prime minister between 1994 and 2011, during tenures marked by numerous legal troubles, including charges of tax fraud, bribery and corruption. Much like Trump, he portrayed himself as a victim of political persecution, claiming that his legal issues were the result of a biased judiciary and political enemies. He embraced his image as an anti-establishment outsider who was unfairly targeted because of his success and unconventional approach. He liked to present himself as a successful entrepreneur who could translate his business savvy and success into effective governance, despite (or perhaps because of) his brushes with the law. This image appealed to many MAGA-like Italians who were disillusioned with traditional politicians and saw him as a charismatic and effective leader.
Señor T, of course, was a well-known, crooked, Mafia-ed up and utterly corrupt real estate mogul and television personality before he ran for president. He had a reputation for being brash, outspoken and controversial and cultivated an outlaw image, even hiring a notorious Mafia lawyer, Roy Cohn, to represent him and bragging about his sexual exploits on the Howard Stern show for years. He claimed that somehow all this would make him an outsider who would not be beholden to political norms or the Washington establishment. During his 2016 presidential campaign, he capitalized on his outsider status and his willingness to break from conventional political behavior. Lying every time he opened his mouth, he promised to “drain the swamp” even while setting up the most corrupt regime in American history. He positioned himself as a disruptor who could shake up the political system but accomplished almost nothing beyond a massive tax break for the rich. More than 74 million Americans voted for him when he ran for reelection.
Yesterday, Maggie Haberman and Jonah Bromwich reported how Trump is leaning into his outlaw image this cycle, openly associating with gang members and promising to pardon violent insurrectionists and to commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the black-market drug dealing website Silk Road. “Trump, who has long pushed messaging about ‘law and order,’ is leaning into an outlaw image, surrounding himself with accused criminals and convicts... [He] rallied alongside two rap artists accused of conspiracy to commit murder,” they wrote. “He promised to commute the sentence of a notorious internet drug dealer. And he appeared backstage with another rap artist who has pleaded guilty to assault for punching a female fan. As Trump awaits the conclusion of his Manhattan trial— closing arguments are set for Tuesday and a verdict could arrive as soon as this week— he used a weeklong break from court to align himself with defendants and convicted criminals charged by the same system with which he is at war. The appearances fit neatly into Trump’s 2024 campaign, during which he has said he is likely to pardon those prosecuted for storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and lent his voice to a recording of the national anthem by a choir of Jan. 6 inmates.”
Trump’s rally last week in the Bronx wound down with appearances from the two rappers, Sheff G and Sleepy Hallow, whose real names are Michael Williams and Tegan Chambers. Both were charged in a conspiracy that Brooklyn prosecutors say led to 12 shootings. Williams also faces two counts of attempted murder. Both men pleaded not guilty and are out on bail.
Trump, from the rally stage, presented the two men to the crowd for a brief comment. Chambers kept his message short and to the point: “Make America great again.”
Two days later, as Trump spoke to an unfriendly crowd at the Libertarian Party’s national convention in Washington, he promised to commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the black-market website Silk Road, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2015. At the same event, Trump took a photograph with the rapper Afroman, whose real name is Joseph Edgar Foreman and who pleaded guilty in 2015 to punching a woman attending one of his concerts.
In the courtroom, Trump has surrounded himself with allies turned defendants. The week that his former fixer, Michael Cohen, was set to testify that Trump had approved a plan to pay off a porn star and cover it up, Trump marched into court accompanied by his indicted top legal adviser, Boris Epshteyn, who has attended every day of the trial since his own charges arrived in an Arizona election interference case.
Also in Trump’s entourage during Mr. Cohen’s testimony were Bernard Kerik, a former New York City police commissioner who spent time in prison on fraud charges and whom Trump pardoned, and Chuck Zito, a former actor who spent years in federal prison and was a leader of a Hells Angels chapter in New York.
[Like Berlusconi, Mugabe and Jammeh] Trump has insisted that every investigation into him is political, the work of opponents conspiring against him. He has tarred various representatives of the legal system— political candidates who campaigned aggressively against him and prosecutors appointed to investigate him— with the same brush, while backing his most controversial supporters.
This reflex of Trump’s— to ignore accusations if the accused is useful to him— is not new. But the scale has changed.
In his 2016 campaign, Trump put Elliott Broidy, a financier who had pleaded guilty seven years earlier to bribing New York officials, on his fund-raising committee. It was a little-noticed move that might have raised more eyebrows had Trump not been smashing one norm after another as the presumptive Republican nominee.
Shortly after the election, Trump and his campaign were ensnared in an investigation into whether his political operation had ties to Russians. Several advisers were swept up in that inquiry, including his national security adviser, Michael Flynn; his campaign chairman, Paul Manafort; his longest-serving adviser, Roger Stone; and Cohen, his fixer and personal lawyer.
Trump, who denounced that investigation as weaponized, repeatedly attacked Cohen after he pleaded guilty to a range of crimes including a campaign finance violation that he said was at Trump’s behest. But the president ultimately pardoned Flynn, Manafort and Stone, part of a wave of pardons and commutations in his final weeks in office.
Trump also granted clemency to people like Jonathan Braun, a Staten Island man with a history of violent threats who at the time was being pursued by federal officials for his work as a predatory lender. Braun used a connection to the family of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner as he sought clemency.
Earlier in Trump’s presidency, he commuted the sentence of Rod Blagojevich, the former Democratic governor of Illinois. It was a move that some Republicans opposed, but Trump proudly had Blagojevich at a recent Republican National Committee fund-raiser in Florida.
Trump’s efforts to remain in office and thwart the transfer of power resulted in multiple investigations into him and his allies.
The people indicted in those inquiries include Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph Giuliani; his White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows; his current top legal adviser, Epshteyn; his legal adviser Jenna Ellis; and a former Justice Department official, Jeffrey Clark.
Two other Trump advisers and allies, Stephen Bannon and Peter Navarro, were convicted of contempt of Congress for defying subpoenas to cooperate with the House investigation into the former president’s efforts to stay in office.
Trump’s most recent behavior took place against the backdrop of his lawyers’ arguments before the Supreme Court that he is immune from prosecution in the federal case over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. On social media, Trump has insisted presidents should have “absolute immunity.”
Despite arguing that he was acting within his rights, Trump has turned his criminal charges into a commodity. He sells campaign merchandise featuring his mug shot from his indictment in Georgia and aggressively raises money off claims that he is being persecuted.
One of the campaign’s recent fund-raising efforts has focused on Trump’s false claims about the F.B.I. search of Mar-a-Lago, the members-only club that serves as his residence, in August 2022. The search came after he defied a grand jury subpoena requesting the return of any classified documents still at his home.
But the former president has baselessly argued that the F.B.I. was trying to assassinate him, playing off standard language used in an operations order for the search, which was recently unsealed as part of a defense motion.
Prosecutors recently asked the judge overseeing the documents case to change Trump’s conditions of release by barring him from making any further remarks that could endanger federal agents working on the case. In response, the Trump team accused them of “unsupported histrionics” and demanded sanctions against them.
“He either does not know the truth, which is reckless, or he knows the truth and lied about it, which is abhorrent,” Chuck Rosenberg, a former United States attorney and F.B.I. official, said of the standard procedures that Trump has misrepresented.
“He cares very much about wielding power, but not in service of some greater good,” Rosenberg said. “Rather, he wants power— including over the Justice Department— to benefit himself and his friends, and to harm others. He sees that power as only appropriate in his hands. That is a wretched corruption of what the rule of law means— and ought to mean— in this country, and it is deeply dangerous.”
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