When Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg charged Donald Trump with nearly three dozen felony counts over a hush-money payment, it seemed like he was being a bit overzealous with his charges.
Analysis of the charges of people who have allegedly committed a like crime now shows that to be the case.
Talking Points…
- Bragg charges Trump
- What the data shows
- Analysis
Last year, when the charges were announced by Bragg against Donald Trump for his hush-money payments during the 2016 campaign, even legal experts on the left thought that Bragg was taking a fairly significant risk for charging Trump with 34 felony counts.
Bragg hit Trump with 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, a felony charge. Bragg laid out a conspiracy between Donald Trump, his then-attorney, Michael Cohen, and David Pecker, who is the CEO of American Media, the company that runs the National Enquirer. He alleged that all three of these men conspired to pay Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal to stay quiet about their alleged affairs with Donald Trump.
The charges all stem from alleged ledger entries that made it appear that the hush-money payments were covered up by categorizing them as payments to Cohen for legal expenses. The charges further rely on Trump having committed campaign finance violations for Bragg to be able to successfully prosecute this case, a question that many legal experts believe has yet to be answered.
From the outset of these charges, we have maintained that Bragg was overzealous in charging Trump in this fashion. After looking at similar cases that we had seen in the news before, cases such as this are not stacked in the fashion that Bragg charged Trump. We also saw a tendency for these cases to be settled with a fine, penalty, and interest significant enough to make a statement but not resulting in jail time, as the charge is usually considered a misdemeanor.
Bragg turning this alleged crime from a misdemeanor to a felony lies in Bragg alleging that Trump did so to cover up another crime, a crime that Bragg had never charged Trump with, which is why so many legal experts are questioning if Bragg will be able to pull this off or not.
The New York Times did a deep dive into the case, showing that Bragg charging Trump in this manner is an exception, far from the rule. The Times reported:
“Bragg’s legal argument is complicated, but it stems from a simple episode: In the days before the 2016 election, Trump’s personal attorney and fixer, Michael D. Cohen, paid $130,000 in hush money to the adult-film star Stormy Daniels.
“Prosecutors argue that Trump, who denies that he had sex with Daniels, then lied on 34 business records — 12 ledger entries, 11 invoices and 11 checks — to disguise his repayment of Cohen as legal fees.”
The report continued:
“On its own, falsifying those documents would be misdemeanors, relatively minor crimes. Bragg elevated each of the charges to felonies by arguing that they were committed to hide or further another crime — which, in an unusual move, he did not charge.
“He said he wasn’t required to specify that crime, but added that it might have been a violation of state or federal election law. What may further complicate the case is that it relies heavily on testimony from Cohen, a disbarred lawyer who served prison time after pleading guilty to violating campaign-finance laws, evading taxes, making false statements to a bank and lying to Congress.”
As I mentioned above, the general impression about this case is that it is a political stunt on the part of Bragg. In that New York Times article, a friend of Bragg’s claimed that he is not political in any way, but that has proven untrue, as Bragg has ties to George Soros and has implemented a rather progressive prosecution policy since taking over the Manhattan DA’s office.
There is also the fact that Bragg chose to wait until now to prosecute Trump, dropping this case squarely in the middle of an election season. So, voters who are on the fence about Trump are going to see this trial front and center in the news while they are trying to make up their minds, and that is no coincidence. This is a dangerous roll of the dice by Bragg, who risks elevating Trump even further if Trump beats the charges or, even worse for Bragg, if Trump wins the case on appeal, which Trump will claim being the victim of an activist DA and judge, which will drive even more support to Trump.
