Last weekend, President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to warn his followers he would be arrested and indicted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on Tuesday.
"THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK," Trump wrote on Truth Social, citing "illegal leaks."
Without confirmation from Bragg that an indictment was indeed looming, and as the Grand Jury continued to interview witnesses, Democrats, and their allies in the media assumed it was true and ran with the story. "THE WALLS ARE CLOSING IN ON TRUMP" narrative was back again, in full force.
CNN ran wall-to-wall coverage of the impending doom with some of the very legal analysts who falsely predicted Trump's demise on everything from Russiagate, Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation, handling of classified information at Mar-a-Lago, and much more. MSNBC followed suit.
But then, on Wednesday, the Grand Jury investigating a years-old allegation of a hush money payment and an affair, which Stormy Daniels and Trump have both denied in writing, abruptly went home for the day without an explanation.
"Once source claimed that Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg is having a hard time convincing the Grand Jury of potential charges due to the weakness of the case," Fox News reported. "It comes amid major dissension within the D.A.'s office."
As we waited for the Grand Jury to convene again on Thursday, news broke that jurors would again fail to meet and deliberate over the case, fueling speculation Bragg's case was falling apart while everyone was watching.
Meanwhile, Trump raised $1.5. million on the news of a pending indictment.
After days of giddy expectation that Trump would be handcuffed, "The View" host Joy Behar was incensed.
"He manipulated everybody. We all rose to the occasion — the papers — everybody just went there," she said with rage.
When President Trump announced he was running for the White House in 2016, the media immediately became addicted and dedicated every minute of coverage to him. When he won the GOP primary, they continued, although they became a bit nervous that they had helped fuel a campaign that could triumph over the very unpopular and previous presidential loser Hillary Clinton. He did. Once he took his rightful and dutifully elected place in the White House, the media couldn't get enough. They benefited from an unprecedented surge in ratings, despite breathless and false coverage of "Russian collusion" and other actions they deemed as "scandal" simply because Trump was the man taking them.
Maybe an indictment for Trump by Bragg is still coming, who knows? Given the track record of scandals cited as the end for Trump that never came, I'm betting it's unlikely.
The media claims they want Trump in jail, and that may be true. But most of them also want to watch the show, get out of their ratings slumps, and benefit from a presidential candidate they claim to hate.
