Bragg's absurd case against Trump finally gets its undeserved day in court
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Absent an eleventh-hour reprieve from a higher court, Donald Trump will become the first U.S. president to face a criminal trial when it commences on Monday in New York.
Let the circus begin.
The ringmaster of the Big Top clown show is Alvin Bragg, the progressive Manhattan district attorney who campaigned — unethically — on the promise to bring down Trump. Once in office, Bragg inflated a time-barred and nominal misdemeanor into a multitude of dubious felonies by mangling evidence and contorting the law.
With a wave of his showman's cane, Bragg transformed a singular transaction into 34 separate charges in what's known as "count stacking" that no good prosecutor would ever do. It's a transparent window into an otherwise opaque case.
Former President Donald Trump, left, squares off against progressive Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg starting April 15. Photographer: Mary Altaffer/AP/Bloomberg via Getty Images(Getty Images)
The gravamen of the indictment is that in 2016 Trump used his lawyer to pay money to Stephanie Clifford (a.k.a. Stormy Daniels) in exchange for her silence about a purported affair that occurred a decade earlier, that he incorrectly recorded the payments in business records, and that all of it violated election laws, even though it did not.
Bragg surely knows his case is specious, at best. But it doesn't matter. He's counting on the sympathies of a liberal trial judge, Juan Merchan, and the venom of a jury pool destined to be dominated by Trump-hating New Yorkers. The once-respected standard of an "impartial jury" is being treated as a mere inconvenience instead of a constitutional right.
It is self-evident to many that the charges against the former president would be brought against no one else not named Trump. The fact that he is the leading candidate for president in the upcoming election is the only reason he is being persecuted under the guise of prosecution.
Even the left-leaning New York Times "could "identify only two other felony cases in Manhattan over the past decade in which defendants were indicted on charges of falsifying business records but no other crime." This makes the DA's legal theory not just untested, but absurd.
It is also an archetype of unequal justice. In the same 2016 election, Hillary Clinton secretly paid for the phony Steele dossier by using a lawyer to funnel the money while misreporting it as "legal expenses." She was fined by the Federal Election Commission (FEC), but never prosecuted. Trump, however, is a disfavored Republican, so he is treated differently.
The most curious — and corrupt — aspect of Bragg's case is that he still has not identified what underlying crime Trump supposedly committed. This, of course, is required under the Sixth Amendment. But no one, least of all Merchan, seems the least bit bothered by it. His honor ruled that Bragg had presented "legally sufficient evidence" to proceed. Okay, but under what law exactly?
In his malign indictment, the DA vaguely accuses Trump of "violating election laws" without specifying which ones were transgressed. No applicable statutes are set forth. The reason for the masquerade is obvious — in a state case, a local prosecutor has no authority to charge federal crimes allegedly committed during the course of a federal election. Period.
Stormy Daniels sat down with Piers Morgan for an interview available on Fox Nation(Fox News)
None of that is stopping Bragg or his sycophant judge. The DA asserts that any payments to Daniels were illegal campaign donations. Forget the fact that the FEC investigated Trump and concluded that said payments do not constitute unlawful donations. Never mind that the Department of Justice also studied the same expenditures and decided that no crimes were committed. Even Bragg's predecessor, Cyrus Vance, chose not to charge Trump at the end of his years-long investigation.
It is well established that money paid in exchange for non-disclosure agreements (or NDAs, as they're known) is perfectly legal and quite common. Corporations and individuals do it every day. You can assign the pejorative term of "hush money" if you want. But it is often a normal conclusion to settlement agreements and even encouraged by judges who are motivated to resolve lawsuits that clog their courts.
However, Bragg is insistent that since Trump's then-attorney, Michael Cohen, pled guilty to a federal charge of making an illegal campaign contribution, then that somehow makes Trump guilty, too. It does not. There are two reasons for this. First, the plea of one person does not determine the guilt of another. Second, Cohen willingly pled guilty to a non-crime offered up by federal prosecutors to gain leniency in his sentencing for other crimes he committed, including fraud.
In the end, Cohen was shipped off to the hoosegow for telling so many whoppers that you'd need a calculator to keep track. Yet, Bragg has no reservations in featuring an inveterate and confessed perjurer as his star witness against Trump. The same has been said of Daniels, who peddled inconsistent stories about her putative relationship while preening for cameras in numerous interviews.
The only credible case that Bragg could bring against Trump is falsely representing an NDA reimbursement as a payment for legal services to Cohen. But even that improbable legal theory (which requires evidence of an "intent to defraud" that is difficult to prove) constitutes a mere misdemeanor.
Moreover, it is barred by the statute of limitations that expired four years before the indictment. So, to circumvent the extinct statute, Bragg is cleverly twisting the law by attaching the misdemeanor to a felony that has not lapsed, but over which he has no jurisdiction.
A conscientious and able judge would have long ago halted Bragg's abusive machinations. But Merchan is neither. Instead, he is blithely enabling the district attorney's illicit scheme to "get Trump" by ignoring fundamental rules of law, as well as his own duty to see that justice is fairly administered.
The charges against Trump are a prime example of selective prosecution driven by political animus. It is a patently partisan attempt to interfere in a presidential election. Manipulating the legal system by bringing a slew of spurious criminal charges against an opponent to delegitimize his candidacy is reprehensible "lawfare."
It is self-evident to many that the charges against the former president would be brought against no one else not named Trump. The fact that he is the leading candidate for president in the upcoming election is the only reason he is being persecuted under the guise of prosecution.
It has gained in popularity, especially among media handmaidens who have happily embraced the righteous cause by declaring Trump guilty in the court of public opinion before any trial has ever begun.
Will their chicanery work? I doubt it.
What Biden Democrats and the liberal press underestimate is the intelligence of American voters. They see the dirty tricks of Alvin Bragg, Georgia DA Fani Willis, special counsel Jack Smith, and Attorney General Merrick Garland for exactly what they are — a pernicious attempt to steal an election through an abuse of our legal system.
Instead of ruining Trump, their antics have fortified his popular support. A growing number of people see the former president not as a villain, but as a victim of unscrupulous political enemies who weaponized the law to destroy him.
Gregg Jarrett is a Fox News legal analyst and commentator, and formerly worked as a defense attorney and adjunct law professor. His recent book, "The Trial of the Century," about the famous "Scopes Monkey Trial" is available in bookstores nationwide or can be ordered online at the Simon & Schuster website. Jarrett's latest book, "The Constitution of the United States and Other Patriotic Documents," was published by Broadside Books, a division of HarperCollins on November 14, 2023. Gregg is the author of the No. 1 New York Times best-selling book "The Russia Hoax: The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump." His follow-up book was also a New York Times bestseller, "Witch Hunt: The Story of the Greatest Mass Delusion in American Political History."
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Yesterday, while Joe Biden dined with the elite, Donald Trump was out buying the people milkshakes:
T he Chick-fil-A off of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in Atlanta is used to dealing with the morning rush as one of the busier franchises in the area. But this morning was a little different. “Get ready for some milkshakes,” former President Donald Trump told Chick-fil-A staff on Wednesday, surprising customers with a drop-in while on the way to a fundraising luncheon in the city.
The interaction, which quickly went viral across social media, showed Trump buying 30 milkshakes and “some chicken” for customers and supporters.
One moment at the fast-food restaurant has caught special attention among conservatives on X , formerly Twitter: Some banter between a Trump and a supporter. Pundits thought the woman, who is Black, was referencing her race as she encouraged the former president, “I don’t care what the media tells you, Mr. Trump, we support you!”
'That's the Lord's chicken.' Trump visits Atlanta Chick-fil-A before fundraiser (msn.com)
whose money did he use ?
Not US tax payer money; unlike Brandon the Human Fuck Up Machine who is again trying to buy votes by illegally cancelling college student debts; and funding get out the vote initiatives at Universities.
There is a species of low slime that will excuse and defend every bit of wrongdoing Donald Trump has ever done.
Greg Jarrett is part of that species.
That being your little euphemism for people calling it what it is.
What a difference 11:00 AM makes!
Hello gang.
The crime was that he beat the Democrats and Clinton at their own game. They've been reeling ever since.
Trump normally would win that case hands down. The question is can he find one New York juror who isn't partisan?
Bragg and his leftist judge will never let a non partisan; much the less Republican/Conservative; sit on the jury. It will be TDS suffering mighty mental midgets in all the jurist seats.
Agreed.
Jury selection is set to begin Monday in New York.
Questionnaire for prospective jurors:
Letter-re-jury-selection-4-8-24.pdf (nycourts.gov)