Trump chooses trial over trail for the Iowa stretch run

This week in Iowa, a host of Republican candidates will drop in on diners, shake hands in rope lines, conduct television interviews and hold rallies from Sioux Falls to Davenport.

And then there will be one engaged in high-profile appearances in courtrooms hundreds of miles away.

For part of the closing week of the caucus, Donald Trump is choosing to put a spotlight on his legal troubles by taking himself off the trail and heading into a courthouse.

On Tuesday, he will fly to Washington, D.C. to make an appearance in a federal appeals court for oral arguments related to his criminal trial for election interference. On Thursday, he is set to fly to New York for closing arguments in his civil fraud trial.

Neither of the appearances is mandatory. The ex-president believes he is his own best line of defense and is making a calculated bet that there is value in primary voters seeing him on trial than in meeting him on the trail.

“Every time Democrat prosecutors have dragged him through the court system it has galvanized and increased his support among Republicans. There’s no reason that should change. They’re trying to put him in jail and keep him off the ballot in as many places as they can, and Republican voters are leaping to his defense,” said Tim Murtaugh, Trump’s 2020 communications director.

Trump isn’t totally forgoing Iowa this week. In between his two court dates he will be at a Fox News town hall from the state, and he has back-to-back events Saturday and Sunday. But the split screen he is setting up by going to court during one of the most important weeks of the GOP primary is unprecedented. And it reflects one of the defining elements of the primary campaign: Trump’s courtroom trips are as important as any Iowa