May 20, 2024
The New York City trial of former President Trump is drawing to a close, and no one can define the actual crime he supposedly committed. Even Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, who brought the charges against Trump, does not know. There is a reason why Biden’s Department of Justice, the Federal Election Commission, Bragg’s predecessor, and even originally Bragg declined to charge Trump—there is no crime.
Bragg purports that Trump falsified business records when his accountants recorded a payment for a nondisclosure agreement with porn star Stormy Daniels, who was threatening to speak out about a sexual encounter she alleges occurred with Trump in 2006, as a legal expense, rather than a campaign expense. Yes, suspend reality – does anyone believe that Trump should have used campaign funds to pay off Daniels? Of course not. But here we are, in the left’s desperate attempt to prevent Trump from taking back the White House.
Incredibly, Bragg, who campaigned on going after Trump, devoted an entire investigatory team to dig up dirt on him, and the best he could do was a misdemeanor record-keeping offense. And by the time he charged Trump, seven years after the alleged crime occurred, the statute of limitations had run out. However, Bragg, whose office routinely undercharges dangerous criminals, was so determined to get Trump he revived the misdemeanor charge by claiming Trump falsified business records to conceal another crime.
But Bragg never explicitly named the second crime. The resulting charge was 34 felony counts of falsifying business records- all stemming from the same “crime” -the recording of the payments made to Daniels.
Bragg wants jurors to believe that Trump falsified business records to subvert the 2016 election. However, Bragg can not charge Trump with a campaign violation because, as a state DA, he does not have jurisdiction to prosecute a federal election crime. Not to mention, the FEC declined to bring charges against Trump. But that is not the only problem with Bragg’s case.
To prove Trump attempted to alter the presidential election by entering into a nondisclosure agreement with Daniels, prosecutors need to show Trump’s only concern was the election. Never mind that Trump is a married man with children and a business empire to protect; past actions also belie that Trump only cared about the election.
Star prosecution witness and former Trump attorney Michael Cohen recounted that in 2016, Trump was “very angry” when Daniel’s story resurfaced. According to Cohen, Trump stated, “I thought you took care of this” five years earlier.
In 2011, Daniels shopped the story of her alleged 2006 sexual encounter with Trump to numerous media outlets, and per Trump’s direction, Cohen claims he blocked the publication by threatening litigation.
So, if in 2016, Trump’s only motivation for suppressing Daniels’ story was to protect his presidential campaign, then why did he tell Cohen to block the story from coming out in 2011- years before the election?
Further negating Bragg’s entire case, although the completely legal (which no one is disputing) NDA agreement occurred before the election, the alleged falsified bookkeeping entry at the heart of Bragg’s case was made AFTER the election.
Therefore, even if the Trump campaign considered the payment to Daniels a campaign expense, it would have been reported to the FEC after the election, having zero impact on the presidential race. Moreover, many, including law scholar Jonathan Turley, believe that denoting payments for a nondisclosure agreement as a legal expense is accurate.
Ironically, in the same election, Hillary Clinton recorded the funding of an actual campaign expense -opposition research her campaign commissioned, the Steele dossier, as a legal expense. Yet, even though the FEC fined her campaign and the DNC $113,000 for misrepresenting the payment- a violation of campaign finance law, prosecutors never charged Clinton with a crime.
Even if you erroneously agreed with the prosecution and believed the payments to Daniels were a campaign expense, Bragg’s team presented zero evidence indicating Trump orchestrated the payment, knew how his accounting team recorded it, or that he knew the payment amounted to a campaign finance violation -criminal intent is a requisite to prove felony guilt.
The only linchpin tying Trump to the distribution of the hush money paid to Daniels is his former lawyer -convicted felon, serial perjurer, admitted fraudster, and tax evader who admits he stole from the Trump Organization and wants to see Trump imprisoned -Michael Cohen. Cohen is the only witness presented by the prosecution who testified to having first-hand knowledge of Trump’s role in the alleged coverup of the hush money payment.
However, Trump’s attorney eviscerated any remnants of Cohen’s credibility. During direct examination, Cohen asserted that on October 24, 2016, he called Trump via Trump’s bodyguard, Kurt Schiller, to inform Trump of the details regarding Daniel’s nondisclosure payment. On cross examination exposing this claim as an absurd lie, Trump’s attorney, Todd Blanche, presented transcripts of text messages received and sent by Cohen revealing that minutes before Cohen made the 90-second phone call, he was texting Schiller requesting his help about harassing messages he was receiving from a 14- year -old child.
Schiller replied, “Call me,” seconds before Cohen made the consequential call in which he alleged he gave Trump details about the Daniels payment. When presented with the text messages during cross-examination, Blanche forced Cohen to admit he spoke to Schiller, but incredulously, he still maintained that he also talked to Trump during the same call.
There is no way that Cohen had time to speak to Schiller about his teen harasser, then transferred to Trump and filled him in on the financial details of the deal with Daniels, all within 90 seconds.
In one fell swoop, Cohen’s entire testimony is garbage.
Even Cohen’s former lawyer, Robert Costello, claims Cohen is lying. In congressional testimony last week Costello testified that Cohen told him repeatedly he had no damaging information on Trump, and that he took care of the payment to Daniels on his own-Trump had nothing to do with it. Costello believes Cohen took it upon himself to handle Daniels because he saw it as a means to return to Trump’s inner circle.
At the time Cohen believed he was speaking under attorney-client privilege, so he had no reason to lie. Costello, who represented Cohen at the start of the federal investigation, has since been released from his attorney-client confidentiality agreement.
No honest person even paying half attention believes Bragg’s prosecution of Trump has any merit. Even far-left Trump-hater CNN’s Fareed Zakaria stated that Bragg would not have indicted anyone else whose name was not Trump for the same crime.
Bragg’s prosecution of Trump is undeniably politically motivated. How else to explain why the Democrat DA is trying Trump months before the presidential election for a pseudocrime committed almost eight years ago? And how else can it be explained why the former number three person in Biden’s DOJ, Matthew Colangelo, left his esteemed position to join the Manhattan DA’s office? Colangelo is one of the lead attorneys prosecuting Trump.
Going from a top-level position in the DOJ to a local DA’s office is nothing short of a career nose-dive. The only conclusion regarding Colangelo’s motivation is he wanted a front row seat to help take down Trump.
Bragg’s case against Trump is such an egregious travesty that Judge Merchan should toss it before it reaches the jury. But, the highly biased Biden-donor judge is unlikely to take such action.
However, if there is any justice Trump will be found not guilty and every individual using lawfare to affect the upcoming presidential election would be disbarred and prosecuted for abuse of power. It is doubtful the latter will happen. But, if the former does not occur, God help the future of our country.
