Former President Donald Trump likes media attention, but probably not the kind he’s getting right now. Still, several experts believe he’s about to make history on that front.
Experts have told MarketWatch that if former President Donald Trump’s mugshot becomes public following his arraignment on Tuesday, it could become one of the most influential photographs of the 21st century, given the divisive nature of his presidency and the unprecedented nature of his criminal indictment.
“It could become the cultural icon of our time,” Craig Agranoff, a Florida-based marketing executive, told the financial news outlet.
“The [pro-Trump] people who will be disgusted by it will use it for mobilization, and the people who are against Trump will use it to mock him,” Agranoff continued.
“It will be in every mainstream newspaper in the country and probably around the world,” another expert said.
The outlet did say, however, that it’s possible the public never sees Trump’s mugshot:
Given the uniqueness of the situation, “there is no norm for how the process will proceed,” says Guy Fronstin, a prominent Florida-based criminal-defense attorney who once represented the late, disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, with whom Trump posed decades ago for much-discussed photos.
Here’s yet another wrinkle: There’s a possibility we may never see a Trump mug shot, even if one is taken, as presumed. New York has established a ban on such images being routinely released, passed as part of the 2020 state budget. Such images, though, can still be made available at law-enforcement discretion.
“I think there’s leeway” for a mug shot to be released, however, Diane Kennedy, president of the New York News Publishers Association, which represents media organizations throughout the state, told MarketWatch.
