There’s been a lot of reaction about the possible indictment of President Donald Trump, although his spokesperson says there has not been any formal notification of an arrest, and Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s office hasn’t formally commented on the matter.
George Washington law professor Jonathan Turley wrote about a lot of problems in the alleged impending case against President Donald Trump including potential statute of limitations questions depending upon what is charged, that the feds refused to pursue this charge and the Manhattan DA seems to be trying to “effectively prosecute a federal case long ago rejected by the Justice Department.” He also pointed out how there was no push for prosecution when “Hillary Clinton faced a not-dissimilar campaign-finance allegation.”
As I noted, Turley also pointed out the banana republic look of such an action. “The criminal justice system can be a terrible weapon when used for political purposes, an all-too-familiar spectacle in countries where political foes can be targeted by the party in power.”
Now add Andrew McCarthy, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, into the phalanx of folks finding a big problem with such potential action. He’s not shy about it either. He wrote in his National Review column that the reported indictment against Trump was a “disgrace” and was a “nakedly political” move by a progressive prosecutor to benefit the Democratic party in the “long term.”
Bragg is engaged in bare-naked politics. The case is not merely unworthy as a prosecution of Trump (which is why federal prosecutors walked away from it years ago, as did Bragg before he was pressured by progressive Democrats into reviving it); it is also a case that everyone knows Bragg would never bring against anyone other than Trump. Crime is rampant in New York, in part because Bragg’s default position is leniency and often non-prosecution when it comes to hardened criminals. Here, the case of falsifying business records against Trump…is, at best, a nonviolent misdemeanor that is stale and that could be inflated into a felony only by theories that are legally and factually dubious. This is a classic, invidious selective prosecution. It is being launched strictly for political purposes.
McCarthy also pointed out to Fox’s Brian Kilmeade that this case hinges on the testimony of Daniels and former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, both of whom have credibility problems.
“[Bragg] walked away from it Brian and my old office, the Southern District of New York, the federal prosecutors in Manhattan also wanted no part of this case, which hinges not only on the testimony of the porn star Stormy Daniels, who, you know, look, I think it’s credible for her to claim that this happened way back when, but at the same time, you know, she’s on record a couple of times saying it didn’t happen,” McCarthy said. “The other crucial witness here is Michael Cohen and I think, probably, the feds walked away from him because of his deep credibility problems. So you’re not starting out in a great place with those witnesses.”
Even folks like McCarthy who are not fans of Trump get what a ridiculous pile of bull cookies this case is and are willing to admit it. That says a lot about how desperate Democrats are with this move. There’s a lot of speculation as to what may be behind it — from trying to provoke the base to Democrats thinking that this will help Trump win the nomination and then they can defeat him in the general election. McCarthy speculates that the last point may be where Democrats might be going with this. That may be in someone’s mind. But that thought didn’t work out very well in 2016. The bottom line is that whatever the move here is, it’s wrong, it’s political and everyone on all sides of the aisle should be calling it out.
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