Liberals thought after years of saying former President Donald Trump was going down, they finally had something with the charges brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Turns out, their fever dream rests on weak legal theory.
Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony charges Tuesday after a Manhattan grand jury voted to indict him March 30. Trump is accused of falsifying business records in the first degree to keep a porn star quiet about an alleged affair – clearly the biggest priority in New York City right now.
CNN’s senior political correspondent Abby Phillip aptly claimed Trump likely would not get a fair trial in one of the bluest cities in America.
“This is already going to be an uphill climb here in New York City. This is the year 2023, there is no one on this planet unfamiliar with Donald Trump,” Phillip said. “It’s gonna be really challenging to find an impartial jury in this jurisdiction, but that’s gonna be the task here and they’re gonna have to find a way to prevent the defendant in this case from making that job even more difficult.”
But here are the biggest weaknesses in the case that members of the jury should be on alert for.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg argues Trump falsified business records in the first degree and had a series of relationships between him, his former lawyer Michael Cohen and CEO of American Media, David Pecker. Bragg argues the trio worked together to silence former porn star Stormy Daniels and playboy model Karen McDougal. Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to paying Daniels $130,000 to keep her quiet, while Bragg argued Trump then paid Cohen $420,000 throughout 2017 to reimburse Cohen for the payout.
The claim is that since the money was used to suppress a damaging story to a political candidate, the Trump campaign should have recorded it as a campaign expense rather than a Trump Organization legal expense. It’s important to note that while employees of Trump Organization paid Cohen, the payments came from a personal account of Trump’s rather than the business, according to Politico.
The case is flimsy, at least according to several analysts. For starters, the Federal Election Commission declined to prosecute the case despite Bragg’s allegations Trump violated campaign finance laws.
Senior Correspondent Ian Millhiser, who focuses on the Supreme Court and the Constitution, wrote in Vox that Bragg “built his case on an exceedingly uncertain legal theory. “Even if Trump did the things he’s accused of, it’s not clear Bragg can legally charge Trump for them, at least under the felony version of New York’s false records law,” he wrote.
Bragg must prove Trump falsified records to cover up a crime, and while Millhiser, who holds a JD from Duke University, argues Bragg has the needed information to show Trump tried to cover a federal crime, “it is not clear that Bragg is allowed to point to a federal crime in order to charge Trump under the New York State law.”
Another issue noted by Millhiser argues that while Bragg claims Trump concealed the commission of the payouts which violates a state election law, “this legal theory is not mentioned at all in the indictment or the accompanying statement of facts.”
National Review highlighted other pitfalls in the case as well. Even if Trump did commit any fraud, it’s well outside the statute of limitations. Trump recording the alleged reimbursements as a legal expense is, at best, a misdemeanor, but the statute of limitations for a misdemeanor is two years, while a felony is five. Trump is well outside those parameters. But National Review takes it further, noting that New York State election laws do not apply to federal races.
Harvard law graduate and ABC News contributor Sarah Isgur weighed in on this aspect, showing the legal fallacy.
“He’s tying felony falsification of business records to another state crime that requires unlawful means … so now we need a third crime in order for this ‘felony turtles all the way down’ charge to work,” she tweeted. “The two state crimes can’t point back to each other.”
He’s tying felony falsification of business records to another state crime that requires unlawful means…so now we need a third crime in order for this “felony turtles all the way down” charge to work. The two state crimes can’t point back to each other! https://t.co/PzwEhd6ZHh
— Sarah Isgur (@whignewtons) April 4, 2023
