Former President Donald Trump was deposed Wednesday morning by New York Lawyer Normal Letitia James (D) as a part of her workplace’s civil investigation into his enterprise dealings.
In an announcement, Trump, who's the topic of a number of federal and state investigations, mentioned he invoked the Fifth Modification and refused to reply any questions underneath oath. His motorcade was seen coming into and leaving James’ workplace in New York Metropolis.
A number of articles and social media posts quickly identified a deliciously becoming connection between the morning’s occasions and the celebrated HBO drama “Succession.”
The workplace of the New York state legal professional normal is at 28 Liberty St. in decrease Manhattan — coincidentally, the identical constructing the place “Succession” movies exterior pictures of the headquarters of Waystar Royco, the fictional media conglomerate owned by the present’s patriarch Logan Roy (Brian Cox).
At the moment filming its fourth season in New York Metropolis, the present facilities on the facility battle between Logan and his grownup kids over management of the corporate, which is equal components brutally devastating and uproariously humorous.
The expertise of the present (and the passion round it) has usually concerned its Mobius-strip-like cycle of life imitating artwork imitating life. Whereas the present’s preliminary premise has its most direct parallel in Rupert Murdoch and his right-wing media empire, creator and showrunner Jesse Armstrong mentioned the Roy household was impressed by many enterprise and political dynasties, and the writers attempt to not immediately mirror actual life.
Nonetheless, like with any piece of trenchant popular culture, it’s unattainable to separate the present from the bigger context by which it was made. All through the present’s run, which started in 2018 in the course of the Trump presidency, it has been laborious not to view it by way of an eerie Trumpian lens. There are the methods the traits of the Roy siblings mirror these of Trump’s grownup kids, to the present’s commentary on the corrosive energy of the ultra-wealthy and the symbiotic relationship between right-wing media and right-wing politics, amongst many different parallels. It’s additionally fodder for countless memes — one more supply of meta-commentary as a result of the present additionally accommodates storylines about social media and web tradition.
When information broke Monday night time that the FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property earlier that day, as a part of a special federal investigation into whether or not Trump took labeled data when he left the White Home, it was laborious to not be reminded of one other latest FBI raid — albeit, a fictional one.
In Season 3 of “Succession” final fall, the FBI raided the places of work of Waystar Royco, which was underneath federal investigation for probably masking up allegations of sexual assault in one of many firm’s divisions, amongst different firm scandals. The corporate and key family members had been additionally the topics of congressional hearings in Season 2. Logan tries to hinder the investigation, which can sound acquainted. Waystar Royco’s stalwart normal counsel Gerri (J. Smith-Cameron) pressured Logan to cooperate (a departure from the Trumpian parallels, no less than for now). However to this point, like his real-life counterpart, Logan has but to obtain his comeuppance.
Throughout the Trump presidency, a typical social media chorus was to grimly joke that there was “a Trump tweet for every thing.” More and more, there has additionally been a “Succession” scene for every thing — and the connection on Wednesday introduced all of that full circle.
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