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“Everything old is new again.” Whether it was Mark Twain or Winston Churchill or Jonathan Swift who popularized this saying, it is a pithy truth that has been lost. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg And his merry band of prosecutors.
On the second day of their ridiculous case against Donald Trump, they seemed delighted to learn from their first witness that an old political trick was used by the former president’s surrogates in the 2016 campaign. Brace yourself.
david peckerThe former publisher of the National Enquirer testified that his tabloid would promote positive stories about Trump and negative stories about his opponents. His scandal sheet also paid off to bury Trump’s damaging stories.
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Assistant DA Joshua Steinglass apparently considered that information a shocking revelation of political venality and subterfuge, the likes of which no one had ever risked going there in the history of American presidential elections.
Except, you know, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton, to name just a few.
Oh and Hillary Clinton,
Consider the 1800 presidential campaign in which Hamilton wrote salacious lies about Adams that were intended to benefit Jefferson. Our then-President Adams had no objection to scandal, and his acolytes returned the favor by accusing Jefferson of adultery, prostitution, and incest. Partisan pamphleteers of the time happily published mudslinging courtesy of some campaign cash.
The public display of bitterness and covert fraud evolved from there and infected presidential campaigns for the next two centuries and beyond, culminating in the dirtiest trick ever played by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. His campaign secretly funded a fake dossier designed to discredit Trump, known as Russia’s betrayal,
Like the current Trump case in New York, Clinton used a lawyer to raise the money and recorded it as “legal expenses.” Although fined by the Federal Election Commission, he was never prosecuted. no way.
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Juxtapose Trump, who is being sued for falsifying business records under a now-expired statute that was somehow revived by linking him to a previously unknown election violation that was never charged because it actually Does not exist.
Unclear? You must be. And so is Bragg who brought a politically motivated case in violation of the law beyond all recognition.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks during a news conference on Thursday, March 7, 2024 in Manhattan, New York. (Barry Williams/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
Lacking the authority to pursue federal charges as to the underlying crime, Assistant DA Steinglass announced Tuesday that the “other crime” was a violation of state law. Clearly, a conspiracy to illegally promote Trump’s candidacy. Which is the only misdeed that has ended.
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So there you have it. A lapsed misdemeanor is combined with another lapsed misdemeanor which magically elevates it to a felony, even though it is not. Don’t forget, we’re not talking about a single charge, but 34 of them, in what can only be described as a shameful display of “count stacking”, which any half-decent prosecutor would do. Will never do.
There are just a few minor problems with this novel legal theory.
First, in all matters related to campaign donations, federal law preempts state election laws. This is why Bragg’s predecessor refused to file allegations against trump, among many reasons. After all, the 2016 showdown with Clinton was a federal election. They violated election laws, but Trump did not. But he is being prosecuted for reasons that have nothing to do with criminality.
Second, as a local prosecutor, Bragg is prevented from bringing charges under a federal statute, even as to an underlying crime. Only federal people can do this. They decided not to do so, primarily because Trump’s payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels did not qualify as campaign expenditures under the law. In other words, no crime was committed, even if the book-keeping occurred retroactively.
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even liberals new York Times Has published several articles casting doubt on Bragg’s strange legal theories. On Tuesday, it ran a blistering column written by Jed Handelsman Sugarman, a distinguished law professor at Boston University, titled, “I thought the Bragg case against Trump was a legal embarrassment. Now I think it’s a historic mistake.” Is.”
I couldn’t agree more.
