Legal Expert Rips Apart DA Alvin Bragg’s Charges Against Trump

Fox News authorized analyst and George Washington University regulation professor Jonathan Turley believes that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is wading into uncharted territory.

In an op-ed for the New York Post, Turley spoke about Bragg’s case, which entails allegations of a “hush money” scheme and cover-up.

Turley known as Bragg’s case in opposition to Trump “legally obscene.”

“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,” Turley wrote.

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“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 Stewart blush. Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told the jury that in listing payments to Stormy Daniels 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 there to, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor,’” Turley added.

In essence, Trump allegedly dedicated against the law by paying to quash a doubtlessly embarrassing story after which reimbursing his lawyer, Michael Cohen, with different authorized bills to unlawfully promote his personal candidacy.

Turley then detailed the absurdity of the costs:

It’s not against the law to pay for the nondisclosure of an alleged affair. It’s additionally not a federal election offense (the opposite underlying crime Bragg alleges) to pay such cash as a private or authorized expense. Federal regulation doesn’t deal with it as a political contribution to your self.

Yet in some way the characterization of this cost as a authorized expense is an unlawful conspiracy to advertise one’s personal candidacy in New York.

In New York, prosecutors are anticipated to have excessive authorized myopia: They can see no farther than Trump to the exclusion of any implication for the authorized system or authorized ethics. Of course, neither Bragg nor his workplace has ever seen this sort of felony case in every other defendant. Ever.

We’ve by no means seen a case like this one the place a useless misdemeanor from 2016 may very well be revived as a felony simply earlier than the 2024 election. The statute of limitations for this case’s misdemeanors, together with falsifying funds, has expired. But Bragg (with the assistance of counsel and former high Biden Justice Department official Matthew Colangelo) zapped it again to life by alleging a federal election crime that the Justice Department itself rejected as a foundation for any felony cost.

Turley wrote: “Besides running for president, Trump was married and had hosted a hit television show. There were ample reasons to secure an NDA to bury the story. Even if it was done with the election in mind, it is not unusual or illegal. There is generally no need to list such payments as a campaign contribution because the federal government doesn’t see them as a campaign contribution.”

“Everything about this case is, in my view, legally absurd. You know, this case is basically a state misdemeanor that had run out under the statute of limitations,” Turley added.

“Bragg was forced, after he declined for a long time to bring this charge, to do so. His predecessor rejected it. So they took a dead misdemeanor and bootstrapped it into effectively trying a federal crime. But the federal crime here under election law was rejected under the Department of Justice,” Turley continued.

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