Most people commenting here seem to have little understanding of the basis for Bragg's prosecution. From former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Robert Costello’s testimony to Congress:
And from Elie Honig, another former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, in New York Magazine:
With respect to the ongoing Trump trial, I point out the following observations:
1. The allegations in the indictment are barred by the statute of limitations for the misdemeanor of making a false entry in business records; it is only elevated to a felony with a longer statute of limitations if the misdemeanor was committed to conceal another felony. Here is the rub—the indictment does not specify what the alleged other felony is. Current speculation based upon the testimony elicited is that the other felony is election fraud. That theory fails for two additional reasons, first the Manhattan District Attorney has no jurisdiction over the 2016 federal Presidential election; second the alleged false entry in the Trump organization books and records took place in 2017. How can an act committed in 2017 influence an election that ended in November 2016? The answer most recently propounded is that it was a conspiracy formed in 2015. That would be logical IF there was a conspiracy count in the Indictment—but there is not. There are 34 false entry counts and nothing more. There is one defendant Donald Trump and no one else.
2. Finally, there is no doubt in my mind that in the event of a conviction, this case will be overturned on appeal for a variety of legal errors, perhaps the most egregious is the testimony of Stormy Daniels. That testimony was clearly irrelevant to the alleged crime of a false entry in the books and records. The payment and the NDA have never been disputed. The defense moved to prevent Daniels from testifying for that reason. Then after the New York Court of Appeals issued a ruling a little more than a week ago overturning Harvey Weinstein’s conviction because the trial judge let in prior similar act evidence whose only purpose was to smear the defendant, the defense raised the issue again and sought a mistrial. When Judge Marchan was informed of this he said it wasn’t applicable.
3. In the Trump case, they are seeking a conviction by any means necessary. They do not care if it is overturned on appeal because that will likely not happen until after the election. In the meantime, they will have effectively interfered with the 2024 Presidential election and perhaps influenced some voters because of an ill-gotten conviction.
And from Elie Honig, another former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, in New York Magazine:
Plenty of prosecutors have won plenty of convictions in cases that shouldn’t have been brought in the first place. “But they won” is no defense to a strained, convoluted reach unless the goal is to “win,” now, by any means necessary and worry about the credibility of the case and the fallout later.
The following are all undeniable facts.
The judge donated money — a tiny amount, $35, but in plain violation of a rule prohibiting New York judges from making political donations of any kind — to a pro-Biden, anti-Trump political operation, including funds that the judge earmarked for “resisting the Republican Party and Donald Trump’s radical right-wing legacy.” Would folks have been just fine with the judge staying on the case if he had donated a couple bucks to “Re-elect Donald Trump, MAGA forever!”? Absolutely not.
District Attorney Alvin Bragg ran for office in an overwhelmingly Democratic county by touting his Trump-hunting prowess. He bizarrely (and falsely) boasted on the campaign trail, “It is a fact that I have sued Trump over 100 times.” (Disclosure: Both Bragg and Trump’s lead counsel, Todd Blanche, are friends and former colleagues of mine at the Southern District of New York.)
Most importantly, the DA’s charges against Trump push the outer boundaries of the law and due process. That’s not on the jury. That’s on the prosecutors who chose to bring the case and the judge who let it play out as it did.
The district attorney’s press office and its flaks often proclaim that falsification of business records charges are “commonplace” and, indeed, the office’s “bread and butter.” That’s true only if you draw definitional lines so broad as to render them meaningless. Of course the DA charges falsification quite frequently; virtually any fraud case involves some sort of fake documentation.
But when you impose meaningful search parameters, the truth emerges: The charges against Trump are obscure, and nearly entirely unprecedented. In fact, no state prosecutor — in New York, or Wyoming, or anywhere — has ever charged federal election laws as a direct or predicate state crime, against anyone, for anything. None. Ever. Even putting aside the specifics of election law, the Manhattan DA itself almost never brings any case in which falsification of business records is the only charge.
Standing alone, falsification charges would have been mere misdemeanors under New York law, which posed two problems for the DA. First, nobody cares about a misdemeanor, and it would be laughable to bring the first-ever charge against a former president for a trifling offense that falls within the same technical criminal classification as shoplifting a Snapple and a bag of Cheetos from a bodega. Second, the statute of limitations on a misdemeanor — two years — likely has long expired on Trump’s conduct, which dates to 2016 and 2017.
So, to inflate the charges up to the lowest-level felony (Class E, on a scale of Class A through E) — and to electroshock them back to life within the longer felony statute of limitations — the DA alleged that the falsification of business records was committed “with intent to commit another crime.” Here, according to prosecutors, the “another crime” is a New York State election-law violation, which in turn incorporates three separate “unlawful means”: federal campaign crimes, tax crimes, and falsification of still more documents. Inexcusably, the DA refused to specify what those unlawful means actually were — and the judge declined to force them to pony up — until right before closing arguments. So much for the constitutional obligation to provide notice to the defendant of the accusations against him in advance of trial. (This, folks, is what indictments are for.)
In these key respects, the charges against Trump aren’t just unusual. They’re bespoke, seemingly crafted individually for the former president and nobody else.
