The New York Times delivered a lengthy and fawning profile of Democratic Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who, like New York’s liberal Democratic attorney general, made the selective prosecution of getting Donald Trump the centerpiece of an election campaign.
Yet buried within its puff-piece coverage of Bragg, even the Times raised doubt about the weakness of the hush-money case against Trump, which goes to trial on Monday.
As the Times recounted of the alleged payoff to Stormy Daniels to cover up an affair, “Bragg’s legal argument is complicated, but it stems from a simple episode: In the days before the 2016 election, Trump’s personal attorney and fixer, Michael D. Cohen, paid $130,000 in hush money to the adult-film star.”
Read: Judge Aileen Cannon Vs. Jack Smith: The Battle Over Trump’s Classified Docs Case In Florida
“Prosecutors argue that Trump, who denies that he had sex with Daniels, then lied on 34 business records — 12 ledger entries, 11 invoices and 11 checks — to disguise his repayment of Cohen as legal fees.”
That’s only the beginning of the flaws Bragg has posed as legal theory.
As one X user posted in response to the Times, “I’m an accountant. What type of expense was Trump supposed to record payments to his lawyer as instead of ‘legal expenses’? I’ll wait.”
As the Times continued, “On its own, falsifying those documents would be misdemeanors, relatively minor crimes.”
Yet, the Times added, “Bragg elevated each of the charges to felonies by arguing that they were committed to hide or further another crime — which, in an unusual move, he did not charge.”
So much like the alleged civil fraud case that Demcoratic Attorney General Letitia James brought against Trump, there was essentially no crime.
To recap James’ case, Trump was accused of defrauding banks that made him loans against his real estate holdings, yet the banks were all fully repaid and never complained about doing business with Trump.
The Times noted that Bragg “said he wasn’t required to specify that crime, but added that it might have been a violation of state or federal election law.”
Meanwhile, there is the star witness.
“What may further complicate the case,” the Times reported, “is that it relies heavily on testimony from Cohen, 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.”
The paper pointed out that after Trump was indicted, and despite “a chorus of critics — some but not all on the right” who questioned Bragg’s legal reasoning, “many experts believe that Bragg’s legal strategy looks considerably stronger, validated by a federal judge who rebuffed Trump’s effort to delay or even kill the case by having it moved to federal court, and by the Manhattan judge presiding over the case, who in February officially greenlit Bragg’s premise by setting a trial date.”
What the Times left out is that those judges are Democrats. The local judge, in fact, just hit Trump with a dubious gag order after he publicly criticized his daughter for working for Democratic politicians.
“Some legal experts initially deemed it shaky, largely because Bragg failed to specify the underlying crime that Trump intended to commit,” the Times added.
Read: Georgia Rep. MTG Blasts GOP House Speaker Johnson In Letter To Fellow Republicans
And then the paper added another layer of suspect prosecution to show that Bragg’s case is more political than criminal.
“Though the crime of falsifying business records is nominally a misdemeanor, the Manhattan district attorney’s office almost always charges it as a felony,” the Times noted.
“Still, the Trump case stands apart. The Times could identify only two other felony cases in Manhattan over the past decade in which defendants were indicted on charges of falsifying business records but no other crime.”
Help support the Tampa Free Press by making any small donation by clicking here.
Android Users, Click To Download The Tampa Free Press App And Never Miss A Story. Follow Us On Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our free newsletter.