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Jonathan Turley> Alvin Bragg has his Trump trial, all he needs now is a crime
mystery-ak:
Alvin Bragg has his Trump trial, all he needs now is a crime
By Social Links for Jonathan Turley
Published April 24, 2024, 3:38 a.m. ET
For many of us in the legal community, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against former President Donald Trump borders on the legally obscene: an openly political prosecution based on a theory even legal pundits dismiss. Yet Monday the prosecution seemed to actually make a case for obscenity.
It wasn’t the gratuitous introduction of an uncharged alleged tryst with a former Playboy Bunny or expected details on the relationship with an ex-porn star. It was the criminal theory itself that seemed crafted around the obscenity stan- dard Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously described in 1984’s Jacobellis v. Ohio: “I shall not today attempt further to define [it]. . . . But I know it when I see it.
The prosecution must show Trump falsified business records in “furtherance of another crime.” After months of confusion on just what crime underpinned the indictment, the prosecution offered a new theory so ambiguous and undefined, it would have made Justice Stewart blush.
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told the jury that in listing Stormy Daniels payments as a “legal expense,” Trump violated this New York law: “Any two or more persons who conspire to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means and which conspiracy is acted upon by one or more of the parties thereto, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.”
So Trump committed a crime by conspiring to unlawfully promote his own candidacy, by paying to quash a potentially embarrassing story and then reimbursing his lawyer Michael Cohen with other legal expenses.
Confused? You are not alone.
It’s not a crime to pay for the nondisclosure of an alleged affair. It’s also not a federal election offense (the other underlying crime Bragg alleges) to pay such money as a personal or legal expense. Federal law doesn’t treat it as a political contribution to yourself.
Yet somehow the characterization of this payment as a legal expense is an illegal conspiracy to promote one’s own candidacy in New York.
more
https://nypost.com/2024/04/24/opinion/alvin-bragg-has-his-trump-trial-all-he-needs-now-is-a-crime/
DefiantMassRINO:
I think Bragg is going after the totality of the alleged crimes, similar to RICO or conspiracy. I think Bragg's strategy is to prove that criminal conspiracy is greater than the sum of the underlying crimes. Many smalls crimes (book keeping) were committed in furtherance of more significant crimes (fraud).
Bigun:
Why do politicians sling mud?
Because it sticks!
Right_in_Virginia:
Cyber Liberty:
It looks like Bragg is attempting to prove crimes he did not charge Trump for. Merchan will happily let Bragg get away with it.
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