Below is my column in the New York Post on the expected indictment against former President Donald Trump. It is an effort to reanimate a long dead legal claim against Trump, but could reanimate his presidential campaign.
Here is the column:
“It’s moving. It’s alive. It’s alive . . . it’s moving . . . IT’S ALIVE!”
The scene from the 1931 movie “Frankenstein” came to mind this week as Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg prepared an indictment of former President Donald Trump.
It is the ultimate gravedigger charge, where Bragg unearthed a case from 2016 and, through a series of novel steps, is seeking to bring it back to life.
Of course, like the good doctor, Bragg shows little concern over what he has created in his Frankenstein indictment.
Bragg is combining parts from both state and federal codes.
He is reportedly going to convert a misdemeanor for falsifying financial records into a prosecution of a federal crime.
The federal crime is reportedly the failure to report a payment of $130,000 to former porn star Stormy Daniels to hush up an affair.
That was just before the presidential election and Bragg is alleging that it was an effective campaign donation.
Bragg is attempting something that many lawyers think is as improbable as the reanimation of the dead.
The Justice Department itself declined this prosecution and both the former chair of the Federal Election Commission and various election law experts have thrown shade on the theory.
Not only did Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus Vance, not bring this case, but Bragg himself stopped the prosecution.
It was after one of Bragg’s lead prosecutors resigned and wrote a book on prosecuting Trump that pressure became too much for the district attorney, who grabbed his shovel and went to work.
There are serious challenges to this prosecution, including an argument that time has expired under the statute of limitations.
The limit is two years for a misdemeanor and, even if he can convert this into a felony, it is not clear if he can meet the longer five-year limitation.
Bragg will have to convince a court that Trump paid the hush money for the sole purpose of the election.
As a married man and television celebrity, Trump had other reasons to try to avoid a scandal.
That is precisely why such cases (like one against former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards) failed in prior prosecutions.
However, the greater danger may come if he succeeds in moving this case to trial.
Locals in New York will be thrilled, but will the rest of the country join the pitchfork carrying mob?
This is a patently political prosecution.
Indeed, of all of the potential charges that Trump is facing in Washington, Atlanta and New York, this is one that he must have hoped would come first.
The investigation into Trump’s actions at Mar-a-Lago by the Justice Department could raise well-established crimes and an array of evidence.
While a possible charge in Georgia over election violations is weaker, it is also based on a stronger legal foundation.If Trump were seeking a way to prove the political weaponization of the criminal justice system, Bragg just fulfilled that narrative.
Now, if these other cases result in charges, it will look like Democrats are piling on to knock Trump out of the race for 2024.
They will be tainted by this transparently political prosecution.
Indeed, voters could well view the election as a vote against the establishment and the media — the very thing that got Trump elected in 2016.
A prosecution is likely to extend beyond the election.
However, if it is thrown out before that date, it will again reinforce Trump’s claims of political targeting.
The prosecution could add a truly wicked dimension to the election.
While Biden is accused of illegally possessing an array of classified material in various locations, the Justice Department has long (in my view, wrongly) followed a policy that it cannot prosecute a sitting president.
However, would it indict Trump but not Biden on that basis? Again, the public is unlikely to stand for an apparent double standard.
Then there is the question of a self-pardon. I have long maintained that a president can pardon himself.
That would mean that the election could become a vote on who you want protected from prosecution: Biden (under the DOJ rule) or Trump (under a self pardon).
While many celebrate Bragg restoring life to the statutorily deceased, they should consider what he has wrought.
Bragg is releasing this case into a public that is already on edge.
Polls show that a large number of Americans believe that the legal system is being politicized and hold both state and federal government in suspicion.
A fifth of Americans now view the government as the greatest threat facing the nation. What is truly shocking is that 53% in one poll agreed with the statement that the FBI acts like “Biden’s Gestapo.”
This case could well succeed at trial, but it will come at a great cost even if overturned on appeal. It is inviting other prosecutors to act with the same political abandon.
In the 1931 movie, Dr. Frankenstein was warned, “You have created a monster, and it will destroy you!”
Bragg is risking the reanimation of more than a cadaverous crime. Indeed, he could single-handedly reanimate the presidency of Donald J. Trump.
Jonathan Turley is an attorney and a professor at George Washington University Law School.
News Flash: GiGi and Fish wings have reportedly and allegedly been calling suicide prevention Hotline nonstop as President Trump hangs up yet another nothing burger to the Democrat smear machine! Where’s Hunter and why did China give the Biden’s millions of dollars?
Somewhere a ham sandwich is breathing a sigh of relief.
Bragg cancels the Trump grand jury again today. Why?
Because there is no crime and everybody knows it.
That’s because the grand jury would say “No Bill” faster than Hillary did on her wedding night.
😂😂😂
He cancels because….he’s got no one to enforce. He’ll my own town bleeds officers because they won’t enforce bullcrap! Despite grand jury…he calls it off because he has no one willing to enforce…..didn’t someone say something about that once before…..I think someone did….they said… “Enforce” it…..he’s powerless! But here we are! him challenging 80 million of us! Hello?
All you have to know about Alvin Bragg is he wants to change a misdemeanor into a felony to get a ex republican president . And change a felony into a misdemeanor against real criminals .
Trump is a one man wrecking crew
Now is a good time to discuss prosecutorial abuse of authority, and how this DA, and other Soros hit men, can be indicted, disbarred, and removed from office.
As I went for coffee I was thinking about how Ross Perot relates to this. He warned about the selling out of America that Trump tried to reverse. They went after Perot too. Life and family threatened.
What we have now is a criminal system and the criminals are in charge.
We also have a system that rewards incompetence instead of merit.
That system type has been gaining itself and growing and replacing our former excellence.
Dishonesty is the base of the new criminal syndicate that is deforming everything.
Jonathan, what ever happened to all of the President Biden classified materials that his “lawyers” versus a raid, found from his garage to the University of Delaware, he being a Vice-President at that time. At the very least, President Trump documents became declassified once he left office
If Jesus Christ returned today the Democrats would have him subpoenaed, indicted by Manhattans AG Alvin Bragg, tried in New York, crucified in the media for his 2 angels nuking Sodom and Gomorrah, killing Gays and lesbians.
You miss the point about this protest. I as one of 76 million americans….Will be turning my self in. To be jailed and prosecuted. Is there space for me? Is there a charge for me? Our protest is to turn out selves in every where across america. All millions of us! You all then decide charges. Some how! Our protest is to surrender! We all plead guilty! Carry on what do your ethics say? Half the country is guilty? Then what? We plead guilty. Now what….76 million ppl are pleading guilty? You all exterminate us? Or you fo!like the law? Let’s do a great American sit out. Put the day to a test…they can’t kill all is at once and the jews will prevent holocaust. Let’s plead guilty all at once! Then where is their sting? We don’t even have to in their face like Jan 6….just sit out one day! That’s how fragile our system is…they work for us…they are so small compared to us…so small…and the nothing gets work with us not them! We the people can change things in a day……that’s why they are ready to change in a day. This is our world…not theirs! And they know they got a problem! Not just a kangaroo express one. But a greateater European expansion one. A problem! They’re problem. Against christ! Their demons and sorcery can’t defeat christ! So russia orthodox will never fail. On earth in this dimension with so many souls at stake! Christ will not ploy all China’s souls at stake and lose! So them! It will not happen lightly except as to reveal the true master and god. Then ppl are screwed. But we go down fighting. Let’s fight their lawfare…confess….if all 76 million. Of of confess….then what another houlocaist?
OT: per an appeal by Trump, the DC Appeals Court has temporarily stayed Judge Howell’s crime fraud Corcoran order (involving handwritten notes, invoice, and transcripts of recordings) and set a very fast schedule with Trump having to respond by midnight tonight and the DoJ having to respond to that by 6am tomorrow. Presumably they’ll rule quickly, and then we’ll see whether Trump or the DOJ appeals to SCOTUS.
Memos from 2018-19 shake up Trump case: Cohen denied having incriminating evidence on hush money
An attorney who advised disgraced Trump organization lawyer Michael Cohen provided Manhattan prosecutors with voluminous documentation, including contemporaneous emails and memos, purporting to show that in 2018 Cohen wanted Donald Trump to help cover his legal bills and repeatedly claimed he had no evidence incriminating the former president in a hush money deal with porn actress Stormy Daniels.
“Cohen said he had no information against Trump,” one memo summarizing attorney Robert Costello’s interactions with Cohen stated. That memo, dated April 2019, recounted Costello’s interview with federal prosecutors about conversations he and colleagues had with Cohen a year earlier. …
He said his documents showed Cohen took out a bank loan known as a HELOC — on his own — during the 2016 presidential election to pay Stormy Daniels $130,000 under a nondisclosure agreement so she would remain quiet about her alleged relationship with Trump. Cohen bragged he kept the situation quiet so that Melania Trump and Cohen’s own wife wouldn’t learn about it,
—-
Interview:
“And I said, ‘Did you get that money from Donald Trump?’ ‘No.’ ‘Did you get it from any Trump Organization?’ ‘No.’
“I said, ‘Did you take that money out of your own savings or checking?’ ‘No.’
🤡
Is developing wise, prudent, reasonable lawyers now as improbable as reanimating the dead?
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/victor-davis-hanson-what-happened-stanford
What can turn this around?
All law schools were taken over by commies long ago. Only the very intelligent could see through it and become true lawyers abiding by our laws.
Voting can no longer correct nor contain the blatant abuse and corruption being perpetrated by Deep State and supported by Democrats. You already know the answer to your question, if the banks fail it will take place, don’t get caught on the wrong side but if you do, throw on a dress and makeup for a free pass!