Prosecutors can file false charges, lie under oath, conjure fake evidence, impanel false testimony, coerce witnesses-and there is nothing you can do to hold them to account. If conservatives took a half step back from the specifics of Trump's case, they might find a good reason to support reforms like limiting the power that prosecutors can wield. Of course, prosecutors are trained (and incentivized) to do this sort of thing all the time and rarely face any consequences for it. Who knows how this will shake out in court, but now that the charges are unsealed, it seems pretty obvious that Bragg will have a difficult time scoring a conviction here. (Notably, the White House has been totally silent about this whole matter.) Thirty-four stacked counts, bootstrapped to an unstated crime, to manufacture felony charges.įormer federal prosecutor Ken White (formerly well-known on Twitter under the moniker 'Popehat'), another outspoken Trump critic, posted on Mastodon that he's 'unimpressed with the indictment and the statement of facts.' Bragg has even generated some skepticism from Vox senior correspondent Ian Millhiser, who never departs from the Democratic Party's talking points on legal issues. It's even flimsier than we were led to believe. Some longtime Trump critics, like former congressman Justin Amash, say Bragg is pushing a flimsy case against the former president.Īfter reading DA Bragg's indictment of Trump and accompanying statement of facts, I'm stunned any prosecutor would move forward with this. 'That interpretation is, at best, debatable…If the attempt to keep Daniels quiet does not strike you as an offense worthy of 34 felony charges, you are unlikely to change your mind simply because the Trump Organization kept pieces of paper that mischaracterized the reimbursement for that payment.' 'At bottom, however, this case is about a single hush payment that was criminal only if it is construed as a campaign contribution,' summed up Reason's Jacob Sullum. He thought this was the best use of his taxpayer-funded office's resources? For weeks, there had been leaks suggesting that whatever Bragg was cooking up would be a bit outside the norm of a typical prosecution, but the charges unsealed on Tuesday look even weaker than those reports suggested. Let's start with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the charges against Trump. So the media circus surrounding Tuesday's events made perfect sense. It's the first time in American history that a former president has been indicted, arraigned, and hauled before a judge to enter a 'not guilty' plea. That finally happened on Tuesday: Trump was charged in Manhattan with 34 felonies for filing false business records. It was always obvious that any attempt to bring former President Donald Trump to justice for any alleged crime would be a total media circus-just like most other aspects of Trump's career in politics. Did everyone connected to the Trump indictment take crazy pills?

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