Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has apparently decided that as long as he is going to drive us into banana republic territory, he might as well put the pedal to the metal: he is reportedly planning to charge Donald Trump with not one, but 34, felonies. He has the flimsiest of cases, but it’s clear that the Leftist elites are not buying the widespread claims that this bogus arrest will hand the White House to Trump on a platter in 2024, and have opted to go all-out.
Whoever is behind Bragg’s reckless and destructive persecution of Trump is apparently calculating that the prospect of a presidential candidate battling such a long list of felony charges will give distracted and indifferent voters the impression that Trump must have committed some terrible crime and frighten them away. There has never before been a presidential candidate under indictment, and Democrats appear to be banking on the proposition that most Americans are still unaware that the old republic has passed away and that the criminal might not be the one who is indicted, but the one doing the indicting. That would explain why Alvin Bragg appears to be cheerfully indifferent to the appearance of conducting a corrupt, politicized prosecution designed to take out the chief opponent of the ruling regime.
Michael Isikoff reported at Yahoo News that Bragg will “charge Trump with falsification of business records.” Trump will be arrested Tuesday and “informed that he has been charged with 34 felony counts for falsification of business records, according to a source who has been briefed on the procedures for the arraignment of the former president.” According to this source, the rabid Leftists who have been slavering for Trump’s head on a platter will not get their wish: Trump “will not be put in handcuffs, placed in a jail cell, or subjected to a mug shot.”
This will not be because Bragg and his henchmen have any respect for the dignity of the former president or the office he once held. It is simply because they have concluded that there is no reason to handcuff the 76-year-old Trump or take a mug shot: defendants are handcuffed to prevent them from fleeing, and since Trump is always surrounded by Secret Service agents, so he couldn’t even if he wished to do so. The mug shot, meanwhile, is likewise unnecessary because one would be hard-pressed to find anyone in the world who wouldn’t recognize Donald J. Trump.
Isikoff notes that the 34 felonies are based on the shakiest of grounds. “The charge of falsification of business records can be prosecuted in New York state as a misdemeanor. But Bragg’s office bumped up all the charges to Class E felonies — the lowest level of felonies in the New York state penal code — on the grounds that the conduct was intended to conceal another underlying crime.” Why? The reason is obvious: Bragg wants to give the appearance of having a strong case, and besmirch Trump’s reputation as much as he possibly can. It’s easy to picture Leftist politicians asking audiences how anyone could possibly vote for a man who has been charged with 34 felonies, and that’s the point of it all.
Abe Hamadeh, the Republican nominee for Arizona attorney general, noted how thick Bragg was laying it on: “34 felonies? As a former prosecutor, I’ve never seen that many charges. I mean maybe in sex crime cases the most I’ve seen was maybe 25 and that was because each individual child porn photo was charged. The left has attacked ALL of our institutions, the rule of law is broken.”
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Yes, it is, and we’re in uncharted territory now. Isikoff reports that “under the New York State penal code, a conviction for the Class E felony of falsifying business records can result in a prison term of up to four years.” Then he adds, “But as a practical matter, that seems extremely unlikely. ‘No one gets jail time for that as a first offender,’ said a New York law enforcement official.” Sure. No one gets jail time for that as a first offender, but we’re talking about Donald Trump here and the Left’s relentless efforts to destroy him. Could he be the first to do time for this type of offense? Certainly.
Isikoff states that “the evidence for the underlying crime that escalated Trump’s alleged misdemeanors to felonies is still not clear and won’t be until the indictment is unsealed on Tuesday.” Actually, it’s already quite clear now: the underlying crime that escalated Trump’s alleged misdemeanors to felonies is his opposition to Leftist political hegemony and 2024 presidential candidacy. Whatever extravagant legal legerdemain Bragg may devise, that’s what this is, and everyone knows it.
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