Below is my column in the New York Post on the start of the Trump trial today in New York. I have long been critical of the case as a clear example of the weaponization of the criminal justice system. No one seriously believes that Alvin Bragg would have spent this time and money to prosecute what is ordinarily a state misdemeanor if the defendant was anyone other than Trump. One does not have to like Trump to repel from the spectacle about to unfold in Manhattan.
Here is the column:
The famous Roman philosopher and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero once said, “The more laws, the less justice.”
This week, New York judges and lawyers appear eager to prove that the same is true for cases against Donald Trump.
After an absurd $450 million decision courtesy of Attorney General Letitia James, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will bring his equally controversial criminal prosecution over hush money paid to former porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.
Lawyers have been scouring the civil and criminal codes for any basis to sue or prosecute Trump before the upcoming 2024 election. This week will highlight the damage done to New York’s legal system because of this unhinged crusade. They’ve charged him with everything short of ripping a label off a mattress.
Just a few weeks ago, another judge imposed a roughly half billion dollar penalty in a case without a single victim who lost a single cent on loans with Trump. (Indeed, bank officials testified they wanted more business with the Trump organization).
Now Bragg is bringing a case that has taken years to develop and millions of dollars in litigation costs for all parties. That is all over a crime from before the 2016 election that is a misdemeanor under state law that had already expired under the statute of limitations.
Like his predecessor, Bragg previously scoffed at the case. However, two prosecutors, Carey R. Dunne and Mark F. Pomerantz, then resigned and started a public pressure campaign to get New Yorkers to demand prosecution.
Pomerantz shocked many of us by publishing a book on the case against Trump — who was still under investigation and not charged, let alone convicted, of any crime. He did so despite objections from his former colleague that such a book was grossly improper.
Nevertheless, it worked. Bragg brought a Rube Goldberg case that is so convoluted and counterintuitive that even liberal legal analysts criticized it.
Trump paid Daniels to avoid any publicity over their brief alleged affair. As a celebrity, there was ample reason to want to keep the affair quiet, and that does not even include the fact that he is a married man.
It also occurred before the 2016 election and there was clearly a benefit to quash the scandal as a candidate. That political motivation is at the heart of this long-delayed case.
It is a repeat of the case involving former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards. In 2012, the Justice Department used the same theory to charge the former Democratic presidential candidate after a disclosure that he not only had an affair with filmmaker Rielle Hunter but also hid the fact that he had a child by her. Edwards denied the affair, and money from donors was passed to Hunter to keep the matter quiet.
The Justice Department spent a huge amount on the case to show that the third-party payments were a circumvention of campaign finance laws. However, Edwards was ultimately found not guilty on one count while the jury deadlocked on the other five.
With Trump, the Justice Department declined a repeat of the Edwards debacle and did not bring any federal charge.
But Bragg then used the alleged federal crime to bootstrap a defunct misdemeanor charge into a felony in the current case. He is arguing that Trump intentionally lied when his former lawyer Michael Cohen listed the payments as retainer costs rather than a payment — to avoid reporting it as a campaign contribution to himself.
Thus, if he had simply had Cohen report the payment as “hush money,” there would be no crime.
Once again, the contrast to other controversies is telling. Before the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton’s campaign denied that it had funded the infamous Steele dossier behind the debunked Russian collusion claims.
The funding was hidden as legal expenses by then-Clinton campaign general counsel Marc Elias. (The FEC later sanctioned the campaign over its hiding of the funding.). When a reporter tried to report the story, he said Elias “pushed back vigorously, saying ‘You (or your sources) are wrong.’” Times reporter Maggie Haberman declared, “Folks involved in funding this lied about it, and with sanctimony, for a year.”
Likewise, John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, was called before congressional investigators and denied categorically any contractual agreement with Fusion GPS. Sitting beside him was Elias, who reportedly said nothing to correct the misleading information given to Congress.
Yet, there were no charges stemming from the hiding of the funding, though it was all part of the campaign budget.
Making this assorted business even more repellent will be the appearance of Cohen himself on the stand. Cohen recently was denounced by a judge as a serial perjurer who is continuing to game the system.
Cohen has a long record as a legal thug who has repeatedly lied when it served his interests. He has a knack for selling his curious skill set to powerful figures like Trump and now Bragg.
For those of us who have been critics of Cohen from when he was still working for Trump, it is mystifying that anyone would call him to the stand to attest to anything short of the time of day . . . and even then most of us would check our watches.
Fortunately witnesses are no longer required to put their hand on the bible in swearing to testify truthfully in court. Otherwise, the court would need the New York Fire Department standing by in case the book burst into flames.
So this is the case: A serial perjurer used to convert a dead state misdemeanor into a felony based on an alleged federal election crime that was rejected by the Justice Department.
They could well succeed in a city where nine out of ten potential jurors despise Trump. Trying Trump in Manhattan is about as difficult as the New York Yankees going to bat using beach balls rather than baseballs. It is hard to miss.
However, this is a Pyrrhic victory for the New York legal system. Whatever the outcome, it may prove a greater indictment of the New York court system than the defendant.
Jonathan Turley is an attorney and professor at George Washington University Law School.
Hmm, so Turley presumably doesn’t find any comparison between Trump & the National Enquirer paying off a porn star & a Playboy model to bury their sordid affairs with Trump from the American public a few weeks before the 2016 election & the NY Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story not receiving more widespread attention a few weeks before the 2020 election?
Shortly after the 2020 election, Turley cited a survey supposedly showing 17% of Biden voters would have changed their vote if they had known about the Hunter laptop. That survey was commissioned by a polling company founded by Kellyanne Conway which worked with Trump’s 2020 campaign.
So Turley apparently believes 17% of Biden’s 81.2 million votes—13.8 million votes—would have been changed if voters had only known more details about Hunter’s laptop, but Turley doesn’t believe any votes would have changed if Trump & the National Enquirer hadn’t paid off Stormy Daniels & Karen McDougal to kill stories of Trump’s affairs with them while Melania was still nursing Barron.
Turley wants his faithful followers to believe Trump’s trial in Manhattan largely hinges on Michael Cohen’s credibility. Turley deliberately avoids mentioning that Trump’s buddy, David Pecker, the National Enquirer publisher, told NY prosecutors that the Enquirer worked “in concert” with Trump’s campaign when it bought & suppressed Karen McDougal’s story of her sexual affair with Trump “to prevent it from influencing the election.”
Hey, what’s the big deal about Trump’s pal, David Pecker, admitting Karen McDougal was paid off to prevent her story from influencing the 2016 election? The real story is that Trump would have won the 2020 election if voters had known about Hunter’s laptop, right, JT?
So spooks and retired spooks and other government security types falsely debunking (and pre-debunking behind the scenes) a true news story from material in Hunter’s hard drive(s), working with all major media and all major social media to ban, shadow ban, and otherwise kill the story, with major media in many cases even lying about the New York Post’s true reporting of evidence suggestive of corruption, bribery, influence peddling, FARA violations and like — and locking the Post, a newspaper and media outlet, out of its own Twitter account until the election (first amendment be damned) —
THAT is the same as a candidate paying someone to keep quiet about a sexual affair (whether real or just rumored or alleged), one with zero criminality attached to it? Or paying someone, but not reporting it as a campaign contribution? (Was it even paid for by campaign funds or “outside donors” as with John Edwards? Evidence suggests not.)
One of these things is not like the other.
If a major news outlet had discovered the nondisclosure, they would have had the right to disclose it to the public. The government would have had no right to approach private social media companies in an effort to squash that story. Even lying about it by saying it was from “hacked” sources. Biden was under no legal pressure to inform the public of the laptop.
I think in paragraph 1 the word was supposed to be recoil alms not repel.
For the record, both Trump and Daniels deny the affair took place. So, in this column which purports to abhor the travesty of justice unfolding before our eyes, when you state as a fact that Trump had an affair with Daniels, I don’t think that’s really fair or helpful.
*and not *alms
Who was prosecuted for hiding laptop story?
What a retard
This case combines laws in a way never before seen just to get Trump.
Isn’t this similar behavior to passing a Bill of Attainder just to “get” someone??
Trump showed he had a signed letter from Stormy,
saying without doubt there hadn’t even been an affair.
Either it was real, or it wasn’t. How will it affect the case?
I have 2 questions for the lawyers who participate in the discussion here:
1) The Constitution provides for a trial before a jury of the defendant’s peers. How does a jury pulled from a pool that is 95% Democrat (in NYC, DC, Atlanta) constitute a jury of Trump’s peers? Can Trump argue that the jury selection is biased and its outcome violate the US Constitution?
2) Bragg is a New York State prosecutor and has no authority to prosecute federal crimes, nor can a NY court hear a federal criminal case (no jurisdiction). However, Bragg elevates a NY misdemeanor (which already passed the statute of limitations) to a felony (still within the statute of limitations) by hatching it to an alleged federal election crime. If Trump were convicted of such crime, I would understand that. But that is not the case. So, through a backdoor, it seems to me, Bragg is prosecuting a federal crime. He must prove in a NY court that Trump committed such a crime (not withstanding that the DOJ decided not even to prosecute), and the jury must render judgment on whether Trump is guilty of this federal crime in order to arrive at an offense of a state criminal offense. Are there no jurisdictional issues here?
There is nothing even remotely normal about any of the Trump cases. As to “jury of your peers”, it only means jurors within the community that are eligible to serve. I have no idea what is happening regarding the elevation of the limited out misdemeanors that were elevated to felonies, again this doesn’t ever happen…unless your name is Trump. The criminal NY state tax case of the Trump Corp was where I first saw things go off the rails. Its very unusual to see a state DA (not the IRS) bring a criminal tax case against an organization that isn’t named “Gambino” for the deduction of corporate fringes…that have been occurring for the past 12 years. Even if you get past that, even if they were totally improper, it is absolutely unheard of to pursue jail time for the CFO, a big fine maybe but, jail time is off the rails unheard of. 40 Felony counts over a $130k payout, that was probably a legit campaign expense, out of a $100mil total outlay, that happened 8yrs prior….yeah, completely off the rails. A conference campaign phone call to a governor asking to “find me 10k votes” resulting in a county DA bringing a RICO case against dozens of defendants. Yeah, that’s completely off the rails. If Trump had asked him to find two kilos of cocaine it still wouldn’t have been a crime. As Prof Turley keeps saying, the only case he sees as remotely legit is the document case, which to me seems equally absurd. Presidential power has been, apparently until now, unlimited, as to the handling of classified docs. Therefore, I cannot see how any president could be guilty of possessing classified docs when he doesn’t need to do anything at all to de-classify them. He could have called the Russian ambassador and read the contents aloud and it wouldn’t have been crime. Presidents have revealed classified info during press conferences, summits, whenever they want…if he took docs home…they were de-classified. Even if some limit exists and it would take the SC to find it, its not clear to me how Trump can be charged with exceeding a presidential power where no bright line exists?
Thanks for the reply and the explanation, Anon. I share your take on the Trump cases as they seem ‘much ado about nothing’-cases, but dangerous for the defendant nevertheless. It is shameful and Turley is right that this undermines the legal system itself. The astounding lack of integrity of prosecutors (Smith, Willis, Bragg and also AG James, although that was a civil case) is also hard to digest. Often I read statements that we (theUS) have the best legal system in the world or that our criminal law system is the envy of the world. We should stop kidding ourselves.
DoubleDutch said: “this undermines the legal system itself”
Wonder how the a$$clowns pursuing this kind of legal misconduct against Trump will react when we get a couple few years down the road, and they find themselves on the receiving end of politically motivated charges that are equally inappropriate. Hopefully, Turley will remember then that it is self-inflicted damage. I’ll be LMAO at their chagrin.
The problem is they don’t believe Dems will ever lose power. And I am beginning to believe that as well. The GOP doesn’t play dirty as they do. It took the National Socialist Party less than six months to ban all other political parties in Germany in 1933, making it a single-party dictatorship. We’re on the road to that as well, but it’s taking a lot longer. We are living in the 1930s. Chamberlain is in the WH and Iran is the current equivalent to Nazi Germany.
A measure of just how corrupt a country is, is how wealthy its officials become while in office.
Check out the net worth of Bragg: $40mil?, Letitia James: $15mil, Fani Willis: $9mil….for starters.
Check out the net worth of elected officials in Congress, like Pelosi, et al.
The politicians, DAs, prosecutors, and most elected officials are the criminals, not Trump.
Did you ever read Peter Schweizer’s book “Throw Them All Out” about the corruption in Congress, including the legal conflicts of interest that have allowed the Pelosi family to expand their riches? He hits both sides of the aisle. He should update it though. Excellent book.
Thanks for asking those questions and to Anon for his/her detailed respond. You are spot-on that we should stop kidding ourselves because these government officials are conducting Soviet-style star chambers in their courts. As to “…but dangerous for the defendant nevertheless,” I would add that it is dangerous for the country.
Not only a jury of your peers, but also “the right to an impartial jury”.
Neither of those terms appears in the constitution.
The Constitution provides for a trial before a jury of the defendant’s peers
No, it doesn’t. Have you ever read the constitution? Go read it and you will not find any such requirement there. The whole concept of “peers” does not exist in the USA, because by banning titles of nobility the constitution makes everyone peers.
Yes, Bragg must prove to the jury, beyond reasonable doubt, that Trump falsified business records with the “intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof”. In this case the “other crime” happens to be a federal one, but it could just as easily have been a crime in another state, or in another country. And it need not have even happened; the falsification could have happened with the mere intent to commit it, which was then not carried out. No, there are no jurisdictional issues with this, and anyone who claims there are is a charlatan. The NY legislature is entitled to use any ascertainable fact as an element in a crime that it creates. Federal, interstate, or foreign crimes are ascertainable facts, so it is entitled to use them.
There is a Chinese curse that says, may all of your wishes come true. After the Dems get their conviction, I think the more interesting question is what will they do then? They’ll have a Trump conviction for multiple state felonies that will eventually be overturned but not before the intended damage has been done. Bragg’s kabuki theater of circumventing the SOL issue and elevating nonsensical misdemeanors into felonies won’t fly, even in NY. So what then? I think this creates a bigger problem for Dems than they may realize. They’ll have to do something about sentencing. Another giant fine $500mil will look ridiculous. Bail pending an appeal, in a city that has a no-bail law, where an illegal can assault a transit cop and walk out of jail the same day? A suspended prison sentence? An actual prison sentence? Ticker tape parade? This all could very quickly lead to a much bigger federal problem of tampering with a presidential election. And after the Russia hoax, if there was any involvement with the DOL, and of course there would have been, this could look like attempted coup 2.0. There are obvious huge federal questions that will need to be addressed here ASAP. For example, are we going to allow runaway DA’s to throw monkey wrenches into elections by bringing charges that could have been brought years prior? Should prosecutorial timing be used as political weapon?
It’s all part of lawfare, the weaponization of the legal system. They are using Stalin as a role model except his goal was to execute opponents. I guess that’s next in America.
Brad Smith has a good article in the Federalist (linked in RealClear Politics) explaining why Trump has a strong legal defense to these charges, based on the idea that there was no violation of campaign finance law. The jury instructions on this could prove to be important.
The accounting charges are dependent on the commission of a crime. The charging document never names that crime. The defense has petitioned the judge to have the case dropped, because the Defense cannot prepare, for an unknown crime.
It’s not even clear that calling the payments “legal expenses” is false.
I dont think it is illegal. NDA’s are lawyers work product. Insurance companies require NDA’s for some settle/ments. The payment of the settlement is to buy silence/secrecy. The IRS has not kicked out the legal expense.
Clinton’s wife paying for the phony Russia work, was paid as legal expenses.
The FEC considered these facts and concluded that they did not even merit a fine as a hidden campaign contribution, unlike its decisions that the Clinton and Obama campaigns had violated campaign laws.
Trump will give speeches outside the courthouse every day while Biden hasn’t even addressed the nation after our military was involved in a hot war situation over the weekend.
Where has Lloyd Austin been? Remember Donald Rumsfeld, remember General Schwartzkopf as they kept the nation informed about activities happening daily and then think about Biden, Austin, Blinken and Harris and realize that we are doomed.
Correction. It is a cesspool of prog corruption and thuggery. This makes a mockery of our vaunted legal system to the rest of the world. Yes, everone right of center on this globe knows that and sees how weak and rotten our social order has becone and that makes us look vulnerable to our enemies. Thank each and every person who ever voted democrat for the mess we are in. I am beginning doubt whether we can survive this.
I’d rather curse them than thank them for they have set us on the path to ruination all the while projecting that Trump was the one who was a “danger to democracy.” The republic and all it has stood for in the world is on life support. One need only look to
…dang, no chance to edit. Hit return too fast.
To understand how dire is America’s situation, one need only look to Neville Biden and Lord Halifax Blinken’s recent appointment of a certified Americaphobe to fundamentally transform the State Department–the representative of America throughout the world–by purging all whites for that is the (il)logical conclusion of her vision and hateful, racist statements. The damage the third BHO term is doing to America and the free world is irreparable.
My only question is, does Trump have to report all of the free publicity as a campaign contribution? Ironically, this being a “hush money” case, Trump’s support has only grown the more is known about it.
The indictment is against the Constitution and every American who believed in American fair play. We’ve spent so much treasure and blood going around the world force feeding democracy to others that we forgot how maintain it at home.
Half of us remember, the other half is using every tool at their disposal to remove the concept of a Federal Republic and replace it with a democracy that is easily turned into a tyranny.
NY Legal System is simply a Kangaroo Court, unless you’re a Democrat or useful fool of the Dem’s such as Michael Cohen, A Three Ring Circus. The Dem’s and their Radical Left followers along with the Davos and Washington Elites have ruined the Legal system and the foundations of this country.
Fact Check: TRUE.
Gee Professor, please tell us what you really think about this case! I think the public has caught on especially those south and west of New York and except for a thin strip along the west coast. Majorities of voters around the country seem to believe, in increasing numbers, that all of these cases are political warfare against an individual who seems to gore too many illicit but sacred cows. About the only thing similar in the world is the ongoing attempt in Brazil to take a great country back to a Banana Republic. The Lawfare there is even worse than here.
The only thing that surprises me are the people that stay in New York. You certainly can’t say it’s because the weather is great. The Business Climate in New York is a total nonstarter.
Reminds me of back in the early 1990’s when Exxon moved from New York to the Dallas area and so few of the New Yorkers in the corporate headquarters wanted to move to a place with nicer homes, lower taxes, great weather (a little hotter), swimming pool with virtually every house and much more ease of getting around. Many that did come to Dallas enrolled in the Kaiser Permanente plan that I worked at. They found it incredible that so many fellow employees gave up a great job, and pay just so they could stay in New York. The employees that moved thought the ones that stayed in New York were not rational. I tend to agree.
Home is where you make it. A house does not move but a home does.
As someone that first moved from Blue city in a Blue state to the farther our purple burbs and then moved from the Blue state entirely to a Red state I say thanks for the great comment.
Christian morality is what made America great and if Trump wants to make America great again then he must adopt Christian morality, but he is not going to do that, he is going to lie through his teeth and tell us he never laid a hand on that horse faced big breasted skank. Sure the whole process is unfair to Trump, but there is a way out for Trump, accept Christ, admit the wrong and ask to be forgiven…….ain’t going to happen though.
Calling a woman a horse face is an odd way of showing your Christian spirit????
She is a pig, Christ killer. She has sex with men for money in front of a camera. What would you know about morality, right Christ killer?
so when Democrats in POWER commit Crimes…why don’t they go to jail?
The ONLY solution is to DEFUND Democrats
End Federal Aid to cities, states, colleges and non-profits. Let Democrats fund their failures….because currently they are rewarded for making it WORSE!
Guy, Democrats don’t go to prison here in Doublestandardstan.
“Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime”
Lavrentiy Beria, the most ruthless and longest-serving secret police chief in Joseph Stalin’s reign of terror in Russia and Eastern Europe, bragged that he could prove criminal conduct on anyone, even the innocent.
You don’t have to go to the USSR. The great American civil liberties lawyer Harvey Silverglate wrote “Three Felonies a Day” describing the insane growth in federal criminal law. So much conduct has been criminalized that the ruling class regime can effectively prosecute anyone, any time.
That Democrat persecutors – I mean prosecutors – had to stretch the mountains of existing law beyond all recognition to try to find “criminal” conduct to charge Trump just shows how tyrannically evil and authoritarian they are.
And almost no Democrat voters care. The few leaders and influencers who care – RFK, Tulsi, Taibbi, Greenwald and a few others no longer consider themselves Democrats.
Anon: As to criminal offenses, in 1982 the Justice department undertook an attempt to establish the number of criminal offenses. After 2 years the commission compiled over 3,000 criminal offenses from 50 titles of the USC and 23,000 pages of federal law. Then they gave up. admitting being unable to find all criminal offenses. The leader of the research project, Ronald Gainer, said in a WSJ article, answering a question about how many criminal laws there were: “[y]ou will have died and [been] resurrected three times,’ and still not have an answer to this question.
DoubleDutch said: “in 1982 the Justice department undertook an attempt to establish the number of criminal offenses. After 2 years the commission compiled over 3,000 criminal offenses from 50 titles of the USC and 23,000 pages of federal law. Then they gave up. admitting being unable to find all criminal offenses.”
Can you provide a link to the report from that study? Thanks.
Precisely. Stalin star chambers have been set up in America.
This may help Trump. He will give daily briefings from the courthouse steps. If he is convicted it will be seen by many as further evidence of a rigged system. And if he is not convicted it could even give him a boost.
Yes. It’s ironic. These two-digit IQ Democrats think that by pulling him off the campaign trail they can neuter his chances, but he will simply conduct his campaign outside the courtroom. There will be more press for his trials than for his rallies.
Absolutely, this is the man I want to represent my single digit IQ. I think this guys IQ is perhaps bigger than 25, but not more than 30.
Ever thought exhaustion and fending off political persecutions might be an issue here? It really does come down to choosing the best garbage can in the alley. I’ll take Trump, albeit I sure wish the conservatives had an alternative candidate.
The Democrats have a stranglehold on almost every city in the US and many of the states. Unless that is broken, we will see more and more of these political trials. Unless that is broken the USA will become more and more like the Soviet Union and China where “justice” has lost all meaning.
Facts do not matter to Democrats. Like the judge said in the Hunter Biden case – nonsensical.
What kind of schmuck still votes for Democrats???
Two-digit IQs, the emotionally retarded, the vaccine injured, those suffering from mass formation psychosis, low-information voters, shills and dupes, and the brainwashed. Not even massive voting fraud and 10 million illegal voters can stop Trump from taking the oath of office in January 2025, short of placing armed troops in the Capitol and preventing the electors from voting. That is a real possibility; they did it in 2021. The regime has already closed off the Port of Baltimore to the north of DC. What’s next?