Get ready for Manhattan DA’s made-for-TV Trump prosecution: high on ratings, but short on the law, by Jonathan Turley

The prosecution is flimsy and if this is going to be a reality TV sensation, let’s not forget that Trump was a reality TV star. From Jonathan Turley at thehill.com:

“The moment that we are waiting for, we made it to the finale together” — those familiar words from “America’s Got Talent” — could well be the opening line for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg next week, when he is expected to unveil an indictment of former President Trump. With Trump’s reported announcement that he expects to be arrested on Tuesday, it would be a fitting curtain raiser for a case that has developed more like a television production than a criminal prosecution. Indeed, this indictment was repeatedly rejected only to be brought back by popular demand.

Trump faces serious legal threats in the ongoing Mar-a-Lago investigation. But the New York case would be easily dismissed outside of a jurisdiction like New York, where Bragg can count on highly motivated judges and jurors.

Although it may be politically popular, the case is legally pathetic. Bragg is struggling to twist state laws to effectively prosecute a federal case long ago rejected by the Justice Department against Trump over his payment of “hush money” to former stripper Stormy Daniels. In 2018 (yes, that is how long this theory has been around), I wrote how difficult such a federal case would be under existing election laws. Now, six years later, the same theory may be shoehorned into a state claim.

It is extremely difficult to show that paying money to cover up an embarrassing affair was done for election purposes as opposed to an array of obvious other reasons, from protecting a celebrity’s reputation to preserving a marriage. That was demonstrated by the failed federal prosecution of former presidential candidate John Edwards on a much stronger charge of using campaign funds to cover up an affair.

Continue reading

Advertisement

3 responses to “Get ready for Manhattan DA’s made-for-TV Trump prosecution: high on ratings, but short on the law, by Jonathan Turley

  1. The memes of Dr. Evil ordering the minions to whip up a distraction comes to mind.
    It looks like the collapse of the former CCCP with mountains of problems and no solution in sight.
    No one can burn it all down better than Brandon.

    Like

  2. It’s time for a military coup in America. The corruption and criminality of the political class are only dwarfed by the corruption and criminality of the Oligarchs pulling the strings.

    Like

  3. typical amerika: style over substance.

    Like

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.