Posted on 04/12/2024 9:56:41 PM PDT by lasereye
Barring some last-second surprise, on Monday a dream will come true for the Democrats, resistance warriors, Never Trumpers, and lawfare specialists who have hoped for years to put former President Donald Trump on trial. It finally happens Monday in a courtroom in Manhattan.
Many legal experts, and not just those on the Right, have said the case against Trump is weak. But that doesn’t really matter. The fact is, Trump will be on trial, charged with 34 dubious felonies, and a jury in deep-blue Manhattan will likely find him guilty of something. That’s the point. After this trial, if things turn out like Trump’s enemies hope, every single Democratic reference to the former president, every single political ad, every party utterance will refer to Trump as convicted felon Donald Trump.
For the man behind the case, the elected Democratic district attorney of Manhattan, Alvin Bragg, the trial is more than a trial. It’s a campaign promise kept. The 2021 race for the Democratic nomination for district attorney of Manhattan was essentially a bidding contest in which candidates pledged to go after Trump more aggressively than their competitors. Bragg boasted that he had already sued Trump or Trump’s companies 100 times. Elect me and I’ll give him hell! It turned out the “100 times” claim wasn’t true — the real number was less than half that, even if you count generously — but Bragg won the Democratic nomination and then, of course, the election in Manhattan. “[Bragg] seemed to double down on Trump as the campaign went on,” the New York Times noted recently.
And then, almost exactly a year ago, Bragg filed the indictment of Trump. Earlier this week, this newsletter noted Bragg’s case is remarkably weak and that there have been many analyses of its various flaws. But it’s always useful to have a short version of the case’s problems, so this is from the earlier newsletter: 1) The core crime alleged, falsifying business records, is a misdemeanor. 2) To turn the misdemeanor into a felony, Bragg had to claim that Trump falsified records in the act of committing another crime — but Bragg has not charged Trump with any other crime. 3) Bragg “stacked” the charges to come up with 34 felony counts against Trump based on what was essentially one payoff. 4) Bragg’s effort to boost the case from misdemeanor to felony depends on a highly debatable reading of campaign finance law. 5) Bragg’s star witness Michael Cohen is, in the New York Times’s words, “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.”
Together, those weaknesses should have kept Bragg from even bringing the case. But remember the point here: For the anti-Trump coalition, convicting Trump of something — anything — is the goal. Shortly after Bragg indicted Trump, the liberal columnist E.J. Dionne addressed the widely expressed opinion that the Bragg case was weak and was therefore not the best first case to bring against Trump. “My immediate reaction was not to wonder if this was the ‘best’ case to lead with or what the politics will be,” Dionne noted on March 30, 2023, “but simple relief that Trump was finally being held accountable by the law. He still faces a trial, but that’s the point. He has evaded responsibility for too long.”
Later, other Democrats would file new criminal charges against Trump — a sprawling indictment over the 2020 election from the elected Democratic district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, Fani Willis, plus two indictments, one concerning the 2020 election and the other about classified documents, from Jack Smith, the special prosecutor chosen by the Biden Justice Department to pursue Trump. But each of those cases has become bogged down in disputes that are both substantive and procedural. What’s left was…Alvin Bragg.
So now the Manhattan trial is about to begin. When Trump’s defenders say the case is weak and politically motivated, they’re right. But for the anti-Trump coalition, it’s what it’s got. Remember the famous quote from Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense when the United States invaded Iraq: “You go to war with the army you have. They’re not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.” Right now, Bragg is the army the anti-Trump coalition has, and on Monday, they go to war.
The rest of the Republican current and former office holders will fall into one of the following groups:
BTTT
Much like the claim that the 2020 election was the purest ever, these lawfare charges are totally bogus.
Half of America knows that the Deep State needs to be kicked to the curb.
The criminal justice system in America has run amok. It’s long past time to reign it in to constitutional norms, and provide new rights of appeal to the accused to end vexatious criminal prosecutions.
This will be as big to Dems as the abortion bills.
They will need to get each and every elected Republican official on the record as to what they think about what happened to Trump after the case is settled.
There will be some who will go full-Trump-supporter, and many of these might surprise us. Calculations will be made, and those who think that Trump will eventually prevail will want to be on his side when the dust settles.
A majority of Americans know it's worse that that.
That this case could even begin to get this far is the death of the country.
The basis for it is the very definition of a “trumped up” phony charge, to use the obvious pun. And that is precisely why the Founders went to great lengths to prevent such things in the Constitution. This one is close to a Bill of Attainder, but not quite.
That petty officers could engage in such a frontal assault on the Federal Executive - and Trump is definitely one of a small group of people who have stood at the top of that - is an insult to the system that smacks of the tactics of the English Crown. It should not stand.
Certainly, such a strained reasoning to arrive at a “crime” when the current occupant of the White Hut has casually admitted to major felonies associated with the Espionage Act but not been prosecuted is a shocking in its hypocrisy and hubris.
The trial should be ended before it starts, and the participants rebuked and prevented from using state power ever again.
Anything they say.do.Try...is a lie and made up to get him out of their global dream.. While they give Joe and Hunter a huge pass over criminal acts.
If God has not dealt with them before Trump is back.. They all will be fired in 2025.
These people have no fear over lying and destroying good people.. If this be God’s work.. They will find they have climb Ed the wrong tree.
When I was a schoolboy, I remember the story of President Andrew Johnson, and I was horrified by the way he was ill-used by the politicians, even impeaching him for political reasons. I thought it could never happen again, that we were too advanced. I was wrong.
eff this POS banana republic.
The blacks in GA.. More and more are in his corner.. They see Trump is being treated as they have been.. And they don’t like it.
What the other side has done to Trump... I trust they will
We have to do better then that.
At this point in history, unless the Red states do something dramatic about this like call a convention of the states, it’s on to French Revolution territory.
The vapid idiot running the “Supreme” court could step in, but he’s not too bright and is an ideologue as well. He cannot see that everything he is allowing is delegitimizing the entire judiciary.
There is no requirement for them to sit mutely as such a thing happens. It is up to him to ensure that the judicial system functions at the level that the Constitution requires. A pre-emptive intervention is not prohibited, but required.
Stick your head above the trench sandbags and see what happens.
“ I fully expect DeSantis to do that.”
Would you kindly state just one example of DeSantis defending Trump on anything
Je ne suis pas un soixante-huitard...but it will come to that and worse
As Mr. Trump said tonight...the world is on fire, and the flames will come here too
It might make Chip Roy happy.
Rein.
Aarggh!
I don’t disagree with you, but what “new rights of appeal” would you propose?
The Brits have actually executed a least a few of their kings.
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