By Jonathan Turley
For many of us in the legal community, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against former President Donald Trump borders on the legally obscene: an openly political prosecution based on a theory even legal pundits dismiss. Yet Monday the prosecution seemed to actually make a case for obscenity.
It wasn’t the gratuitous introduction of an uncharged alleged tryst with a former Playboy Bunny or expected details on the relationship with an ex-porn star. It was the criminal theory itself that seemed crafted around the obscenity standard that Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously described in 1984’s Jacobellis v. Ohio: “I shall not today attempt further to define [it]. … But I know it when I see it.”
The prosecution must show Trump falsified business records in “furtherance of another crime.” After months of confusion on just what crime underpinned the indictment, the prosecution offered a new theory so ambiguous and undefined, it would have made Stewart blush.
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told the jury that in listing payments to Stormy Daniels as a “legal expense,” Trump violated this New York law: “Any two or more persons who conspire to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means and which conspiracy is acted upon by one or more of the parties thereto, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.”
So Trump committed a crime by conspiring to unlawfully promote his own candidacy, by paying to quash a potentially embarrassing story and then reimbursing his lawyer Michael Cohen with other legal expenses.
Confused? You’re not alone.
It’s not a crime to pay for the nondisclosure of an alleged affair. It’s also not a federal election offense (the other underlying crime Bragg alleges) to pay such money as a personal or legal expense. Federal law doesn’t treat it as a political contribution to yourself.
Yet somehow the characterization of this payment as a legal expense is an illegal conspiracy to promote one’s own candidacy in New York.
In New York, prosecutors are expected to have extreme legal myopia: They can see no farther than Trump to the exclusion of any implication for the legal system or legal ethics.
Of course, neither Bragg nor his office has ever seen this type of criminal case in any other defendant. Ever.
We’ve never seen a case like this one where a dead misdemeanor from 2016 could be revived as a felony just before the 2024 election.
It’s clear Trump has committed no crimes. Hell, he’s never HAD to. He’s made money, hand over fist, in real estate and could legally buy anything he wanted. It is obvious by how Democrats have to make a crime out of torturing of statutes that they have nothing on him. I hope Trump sues everyone involved in this lawfare and bankrupts them into destitution.
But of course. Rich people never, ever commit crimes to make more money. That’s self-evident.
Didn’t say that, of course, but I realize when stupid people with stupid ideas and without the ability to reason, they have to say stupid things, like you did.
Its just Mikeys habit.
Not one credible legal scholar can definitively identify a crime was committed.
But Greg has. He’s guilty of the crime of having on crime to prosecute. He guilty of offering the American people an alternative to fascism, socialism and a totalitarian police state. He’s guilty of having been a successful President. He’s guilty of caring for this country more than for anything else.
The punishment is life imprisonment.
I’d really love to know whether, deep in your heart, you truly believe this.
Yeah, I do. He is a very wealthy person that has benefitted from American capitalistic opportunities and he hates seeing it destroyed. He hates seeing the Constitution destroyed. He hates fascism and socialism and he is sacrificing himself to fight it. That doesn’t make him a saint; it just makes him a great President.
I doubt you believe anything but Marxist doctrine.
Every felony count relates to a specific statutory crime. Your “legal scholars” know that perfectly well.
Yeah, they are all very significant. For instance, one for what was written on a check and another additional one for what is written in the check book ledger, as if it would be proper to write something DIFFERENT in the ledger. Besides, this is a PRIVATE (as opposed to publicly traded) company, so IT’S NOBODY’S BUSINESS what he spends his money on. So, it’s nothing but bullshit scoreboarding to impress really stupid people.
Every felony represents Democrat desperation at having failed so miserably at running this country, at having such an incompetent, corrupt, treasonous pedophile for a candidate and at having no idea how common working, taxpaying, patriotic citizens think.
Can Alvin Braggs and His Ludicrous Case Against Donald Trump Survive the Hope Hicks Debacle
(America First Report)—When Hope Hicks was announced as a witness for the prosecution against Donald Trump, many were concerned that this former insider into the President’s sphere would deliver damning evidence against her former boss. After all, only the most idiotic prosecutor would call a witness that could damage the foundation of their case.
It turns out Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is an idiot. Hicks not only delivered testimony that undermined his case, but did so as one of his own witnesses. The only thing he has going for him now is a New York jury that is notorious for ruling against Republicans in general and Donald Trump in particular.
Now, the Manhattan hush money trial of Donald Trump took a dramatic turn. As the former press secretary during the 2016 presidential campaign, Hicks provided testimony that undermined the prosecution’s case.
Hicks explained that Trump’s motive for suppressing salacious stories was to protect his wife, Melania, stating, “Absolutely…I don’t think he wanted anyone in his family to be hurt or embarrassed about anything on the campaign. He wanted them to be proud of him.” This directly contradicted District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s primary claim against Trump, that he paid porn star Stormy Daniels for her silence with the intent to benefit his campaign and influence the election by “unlawful means.”
The account by Hicks supported the findings of a federal investigation that no crimes were committed or campaign finance laws broken. Furthermore, Hicks disparaged Bragg’s planned star witness, Michael Cohen, Trump’s one-time personal lawyer, by saying, “He used to like to call himself Mr. Fix-It, but it was only because he first broke it.” Cohen, a convicted liar who went to prison, has been a target of ridicule from other witnesses as well.
Hicks’ testimony confirmed that Trump was aware of the payments made to Daniels but did not contest it, stating that he followed his lawyer’s advice. However, the payments made were not illegal, and killing negative stories violates no statutes. Moreover, it is not a crime for Trump to know about a non-crime.
The only crime here appears to be Bragg’s politically driven prosecution of Trump, in which he conjured up expired misdemeanors and used a garbage state statute that doesn’t apply to a federal election. The legal wrangling between two lawyers over a legal contract executed on behalf of their clients is what attorneys do every day. Bragg’s charges that Trump falsified business records in 2017 do not amount to a crime since the presidential contest occurred in 2016, making it impossible to complete the intended crime.
The case has been marked by the admission of irrelevant and prejudicial information, such as the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape, which has no bearing on the case. This only serves to smear Trump with information that has no relevance to the charges at hand.
The trial has highlighted the weakness of Bragg’s case and the potential for a boomerang effect, with voters seeing this as a politically motivated attack on Trump. The hope is that the jurors will recognize this as well and deliver a fair verdict.
We look at this through the lens of a legitimate justice system. That no longer exists. E. Jean Carroll, Engoron and James have all confirmed that. No matter how much exculpatory evidence there is, the “courts” will do whatever they have to to convict Trump. He will simply have to find a court not on the DNC roster and have them overturned on appeal. But the mere fact that the evidence there has been no crimes committed doesn’t matter one tiny bit.
Can Alvin Braggs and His Ludicrous Case Against Donald Trump Survive the Hope Hicks Debacle
Oops. Duplicate post sorry.
RFK is a typical filthy democrat, cant be trusted check out Natural News.com.
A video has been unearthed in which RFK Jr. tells an audience that “Red State people are more likely to murder you.” The revelation of his shocking comments comes as the independent presidential candidate is making a concerted effort to court Republican voters and MAGA supporters.
Along with his no spoilers deal with the pedophile, I wish bad things for that snake.
“An evil man will burn his own nation to the ground to rule over the ashes.”
~Sun Tzu~
Describes Biden’s presidency very well.
And that’s exactly what Robin Ware/Robert L. Peters/JRB Ware/Pedo Peter/idiot Biden, Obama and Soros are doing to the US.
Easy, if he did it.
Rich people usually make a practice of not being alone with people they don’t know as how the time was used can be a “he said, she said,” later.
She had published her story in Germany’s Bild magazine years before Trump even thought about being a candidate.
But Trump never wrote the checks, or even wrote the little notes at the bottom of those checks about what each was for.
And, paying a “consideration,” or a “legal fee,” is not a crime.
And even having sex outside of marriage is not a crime, so why Stormy is even on the witness list, much less gossip mag editors, is just weird.
The story was already out in public years before so there was no “buying of silence,” either.

“Wrote checks”. Who pays for crimes with checks?
The prosecution must show Trump falsified business records in “furtherance of another crime.”
This is the problem for Bragg as I understand it. He won’t show what the other crime is. How can anyone prepare a defense for an unnamed crime? Also so far no one has shown Trump falsified business records in this case. Just accusations.
None of that is important. If the jury is 100% biased, they’ll convict him no matter what. That’s all they hope for. They know none of this will hold up under appeal
“Only on Day 1.”
So you finally see how stupid pursuing that “dictator” bullshit is?