There's nothing at all funny about putting a former president of the United States of America on trial for misdemeanor record-keeping offenses and turning those into felonies through a badly done magic trick. The underlying reason why the George Soros-selected prosecutor put Donald Trump on trial starting Monday, however, is yet another reason why this case should be laughed out of court.
The avowed Trump-hating prosecutor, Alvin Bragg, is part of the effort by the left to tie up the former president in court so he can't campaign for president. Additionally, they hope that by ringing up all manner of charges against Trump, they'll smear his reputation. Indeed, Marc Elias, 65 Project, Media Matters, and all of David Brock's smear machines, with the consent of the Biden Justice Department, have been put into service to get Trump.
There are many problems with Bragg's case, among them the statute of limitations issues, the unethical way he stacked the indictments, duct-taping a federal statute onto these New York misdemeanors to create a "criminal" case, the fact that non-disclosure agreements are legal instruments unless they attempt to cover up a crime, and reporting that work done by Trump's attorney, Michael Cohen, was laid out as work done by an attorney.
Quick! Get the cops!
But wait, Bragg doesn't want the cops involved in any misdemeanors (or felonies, for that matter) because, as a Soros DA, there's almost no crime he's willing to prosecute. Note the illegal alien thugs who recently beat up New York cops and walked out free men within hours. This is the kind of prosecutor we're dealing with here.
Why aren't the cases of black men punching white women in the face on New York streets prosecuted as "hate" crimes? Bragg's office actually freed one of those suspects, who then committed more assaults. Bragg didn't even consider ringing Stormy Daniels up for threatening to tell all about Trump unless he paid her money while breaking her NDA contract. That's called extortion.
So Trump is in court for making "false entry in the business records of an enterprise" 34 times. Ordinarily, these are misdemeanors, but the crime Bragg is asking a jury to get Trump on is an "elections" crime of stealing the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton.
You read that right.
In his "Statement of Facts" undergirding the case, Bragg relies on a jury believing that Donald Trump stole the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton by lying about his alleged affairs.
Donald Trump did make a big stand in New York. Most of the state was awash in red, as so often happens, but the population centers, like the one where Trump is being tried, went blue.
Hillary Clinton won the New York presidential vote by a nearly two-to-one margin.
Where's the stolen election in the mind of the Manhattan DA? Not in New York.
Bragg soldiered on in his statement:
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr. today announced the indictment of DONALD J. TRUMP, 76, for falsifying New York business records in order to conceal damaging information and unlawful activity from American voters before and after the 2016 election. During the election, TRUMP and others employed a “catch and kill” scheme to identify, purchase, and bury negative information about him and boost his electoral prospects. TRUMP then went to great lengths to hide this conduct, causing dozens of false entries in business records to conceal criminal activity, including attempts to violate state and federal election laws.
TRUMP is charged in a New York State Supreme Court indictment with 34 counts of Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree.
“The People of the State of New York allege that Donald J. Trump repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal crimes that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election,” said District Attorney Bragg. “Manhattan is home to the country’s most significant business market. We cannot allow New York businesses to manipulate their records to cover up criminal conduct.
So-called "catch and kill" schemes, in which the likes of the National Enquirer and other publications are approached by, in this case, Stormy Daniels, to buy her exclusive story, pay her $150,000 for the rights, and then sit on the story. It's not illegal per se. It is unethical in the same way that NPR and the mainstream media were all in for Hillary Clinton to the exclusion of running stories favorable to Trump.
The Enquirer was doing this for Donald Trump and other stars for years. The Enquirer had an entire safe full of these deals with Hollywood stars. It's unseemly, to be sure. But not illegal. The feds leaned on the Enquirer publisher to get information about the deals and no charges were filed.
Bragg's election claim is the same one that the Federal Elections Commission looked into and dismissed. It's the same case Bragg's predecessor refused to bring. It's the same case laughed out of the federal Justice Department's office in the southern district of New York.
The jury members in this non-televised trial are being selected starting Monday, and, this being New York City, Trump will be found guilty on one of the counts of cutting Michael Cohen a check for paying Stormy Daniels and another woman.
One more thing about that. Trump grossed up Cohen's legal payment to cover his taxes and then gave him a $60,000 bonus for his work. The 34 counts are the number of payments stretched out to pay back Trump's attorney for the payoffs to Daniels and another woman and calling them legal services. Bragg's case claims they weren't legal services. Trump says they were because he paid his attorney for services rendered.
If any wants to get under Bragg's skin, they should ask when was the last time he prosecuted this record-keeping misdemeanor. That would be zero. And then they should ask how it was exactly that Trump stole the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton when she won New York. Oh, and try not to laugh at his answer.
The media have called this case a "hush money" case. But seldom do you have the case robustly explained the way we do at PJ Media. You probably know that we're under attack by the censors because we tell you uncomfortable truths that the censors don't like. A way around the censors is to become a VIP Member or VIP GOLD Member. Click here and use the promo code SAVEAMERICA to get 50% off on your your subscription. Thank you.
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