Given [gestures helplessly toward 2015–2021 A.D.], it's amazing that the Stormy Daniels Escapade could be first out of the gate.

You can't make me believe Donald Trump could face criminal charges. I will not believe it until I see the indictment papers on this very screen. From The New York Times:

The prosecutors offered Mr. Trump the chance to testify next week before the grand jury that has been hearing evidence in the potential case, the people said. Such offers almost always indicate an indictment is close; it would be unusual for the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, to notify a potential defendant without ultimately seeking charges against him.[...]Mr. Bragg could become the first prosecutor to charge Mr. Trump, but he might not be the last. In Georgia, the Fulton County District Attorney is investigating whether Mr. Trump interfered in the 2020 election, and at the federal level, a special counsel is scrutinizing Mr. Trump’s effort to overturn the election results, as well as his handling of classified documents. The Manhattan inquiry, which has spanned nearly five years, centers on a $130,000 payment to the porn star, Stormy Daniels, who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump. The payment was made in the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign by Michael Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former fixer, who was later reimbursed by Mr. Trump from the White House.

It would be an incredible irony if, after all the other stuff, this tawdry transaction is what brings him down. Of course, on his own little website, he took the Times piece with his customary sangfroid.

I did absolutely nothing wrong, I never had an affair with Stormy Daniels, nor would I have wanted to have an affair with Stormy Daniels. This is a political Witch-Hunt, trying to take down the leading candidate, by far, in the Republican Party while at the same time also leading all Democrats in the polls, including Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Congress and numerous Democrat District Attorneys, Attorneys General, and the Department of Injustice itself, which has unprecedentedly placed top DOJ prosecutors into the Manhattan District Attorney’s office in order to “get Trump”, have found that I did nothing wrong. Now, they fall back on the old, and rebuked case which has been rejected by every prosecutor’s office that has looked at this Stormy “Horseface” Daniels matter, where I relied on counsel in order to resolve this Extortion of me, which took place a long time ago.

(He goes on, but you get the idea.) But I won't believe it until I see it. And maybe not even then.