Get ready for another prime time show trial

Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg is set to indict Trump this week . Trump has stated he expects to be arrested Tuesday . For maximum effect they should raid his home with SWAT teams and frog tie and march him while CNN cameras record the event. Rachael Madcow wiil cheerl lead the event . It is what the public in the bluest of blue states wants . In almost every other jurisdiction in the nation the case would've been laughed out of a Grand Jury room. It has all the elements of serious news coverage that ' News Nation' looks for .....a salacious story and endless coverage of a trial.

The Justice Dept wouldn't touch it even though the only charges are about Federal Campaign finances . When John Edward was involved with more serious charges it went nowhere. The problem is Trump's celebrity status .The charge is that he paid hush money to Stormy Daniels . He probably did . But the issue is was it for election purposes or for a number of other reasons why a celebrity would shell out $$ for their reputation .

The Feds in the 2nd District already did this investigation and decided it was not worth pursuing . Before Braggs the DA was Cyrus Vance Jr . He did the investigation and decided the case was a nothing burger. Even Braggs initially rejected the case.He had prosecutors resign over that call. One of them ,Mark F. Pomerantz,wrote a book about the case .

People vs. Donald Trump: An Inside Account: Pomerantz, Mark: 9781668022443: Amazon.com: Books (https://www.amazon.com/People-vs-Donald-Trump-Account/dp/1668022443)

The book sold . So now Bragg seeing the opportunity to become a celeb prosecutor is hell bent on bringing the case to trial The path to the Guv of NY is to be a celeb DA .

More on the spectific charges when the indictment happens . It is probably a tax case of a falsifying business records case since all the avenues of election violations have been explored and rejected .

I imagine it's an effort to cripple Trump's chances in the next pres election more than anything else. Musk's opinion, for what it's worth, is that this decision may very well backfire on them.


"If this happens, Trump will be re-elected in a landslide victory," Musk tweeted Saturday.

https://www.businessinsider.com/musk-says-trump-re-elected-if-arrest-rumors-are-true-2023-3

Here is the John Edwards link

John Edwards walks free after chaotic end to corruption trial | John Edwards | The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/may/31/john-edwards-walks-free-mistrial)

Yes clearly this is timed to coincide with the election season and it will probably last unttl the end of next year before charges are dismissed in January 2025 . Bragg has already missed the statute of limitations for a misdemeanor sec 175 of NY law (2 years )

Falsifying Business Records: NY PL 175.10 and 175.15 | New York Criminal Defense Lawyers (new-york-lawyers.org) (https://www.new-york-lawyers.org/falsifying-business-records-ny-pl-175-10-and-175-15.html#:~:text=Simply%2C%20if%20you%20delete%2C%2 0alter,have%20committed%20the%20felony%20crime.)

But he will try to make it a felony by linking it to Federal campaign finance laws that the Justice Dept has already decided to ignore.
the “intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.”

New York Penal Law § 175.10 (2022) - Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree. :: 2022 New York Laws :: US Codes and Statutes :: US Law :: Justia (https://law.justia.com/codes/new-york/2022/pen/part-3/title-k/article-175/175-10/)



The Feds gave Evita a slap on the wrist for funding the Steele Dossier and then burying it in the campaign's legal expenses ..... and did not charge Trump at all .

None of this matters . It is great theatre and should make the talking heads that spent weeks pontificating about the Murdoch murder case orgasmic . But Trump lives in a PT Barnum world where no publicity is bad publicity . There is a risk for the Dems by keeping Trump front and center . They know it too. But they just can't help themselves .

Or maybe the Trump martyrdom serves their purpose. Is it a coincidence that Trump will be indicted in the middle of revelations about the Biden crime family distributing more than $1million of Chinese bucks amongst themselves ? A simultaneous hit may come from the Georgia grand jury's show trial .

The Biden crime family story was getting so big that even the Slimes was covering it .
The only thing the compliant press had to balance the story was that Trump was gifted golf clubs from Japan that are now missing .

Report: $3,755 Gold Golf Club Japan's PM Gave to Trump Is Missing (businessinsider.com) (https://www.businessinsider.com/3755-gold-golf-club-gifted-trump-japans-pm-missing-democrats-2023-3)

They have their stooge in soft on crime Soros funded DA Bragg ;who when entering office declared that prostitution was no longer a crime worth pursuing .

Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg Says His Office Won't Prosecute Fare Evasion, Resisting Arrest, Prostitution And More Without Accompanying Felony Charge - CBS New York (cbsnews.com) (https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/manhattan-da-alvin-bragg-low-level-offenses/)

Ok so prostitution is not to be charged . But paying a prostitute to keep silent is to be charged.

And who is his star witness ? Michael Cohen who is a convicted perjurer .

It's always struck me that any DA who decides, "We won't pursue X, Y, and Z because...well, because I just don't want to," is putting himself above the law. It's a sort of kingship.

and of course this decision was announced AFTER he was elected . Prosecutorial discretion is probably necessary when making decisions based on resource availability . In this case he refuses to also prosecute theft and some violent crimes ;but is using his resources as a political gotcha tool .

How much you wanna bet he'd be more than happy to prosecute a pro-life protestor?

The Bee seems to agree with Musk.


MANHATTAN, NY — Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has announced a brilliant new plan to get Trump elected President in 2024.
"I will stop at absolutely nothing to put Trump back in the White House where he belongs," said Mr. Bragg. "I'm about to charge up his base like you've never seen!"

https://babylonbee.com/news/manhattan-da-announces-plan-to-get-trump-elected-in-2024?utm_source=The%20Babylon%20Bee%20Newsletter&utm_medium=email

A letter from star witness Michael Cohen's attorney Stephen M Ryan to the FEC ,destroys Cohen's alleged testimony to the grand jury in NYC, and his direct testimony to Congress. Yesterday the grand jury session was abruptly halted without explanation . This may be why.



https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2023/03/22/21/69003937-11891633-image-a-40_1679519003822.jpg

Cohen told Congress that Trump directed him to make the payment so it could not be traced back to Trump. This letter says the opposite.

It could be that Cohen lied to his lawyer about the payments and Cohen was covering for Trump before Cohen flipped and became a state's witness. So when was he lying.....then or now ?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fr7NKkAWcAorytW?format=jpg&name=small

I wonder if the dems are going to pay her "un-hush" money?

Robert Costello is a former legal advisor to star witness Michael Cohen.
Cohen has waived attorney client privilege
He was a surprise witness testifying to the Grand Jury. He may have put the nail in the coffin of the case.


According to Costello Bragg neglected to give the Grand Jury pages and pages of exculpatory evidence emails about the case.He claims Bragg cherry picked about a half dozen of the docs he submitted and used them to make the case against Trump.

The Dems and the compliant press are turning sour on this case. Why ? Not because of the injustice of perseucting Trump . They are afraid that Bragg's case is so weak that it could potentially undermine other efforts to 'get Trump' .

It’s unwise to get Trump on a technicality | Financial Times (ft.com) (https://www.ft.com/content/2677f0d6-d60d-4ee2-bfca-e294469ca780)

Will the indictment go down ? Maybe Bragg will get the message that it is a bad play now that il Duce Cuomo has attacked him for the prosecution.

On a radio interview ,Cuomo said that both the politically motivated Bragg and Georgia investigations of Trump were part of a “cancer in our body politic.” He said prosecutors bringing “partisan” cases confirms people’s “cynicism.”
“I don’t believe a Democratic prosecutor just happens to be attacking a Republican. I don’t believe a Republican prosecutor just happens to be attacking a Democrat. I think it’s all politics, and I think that’s what the people of this country are saying”

Andrew Cuomo slams NY, Georgia investigations into Trump as feeding ‘cancer in our body politic’ (yahoo.com) (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/andrew-cuomo-slams-ny-georgia-131629041.html)

Dan Abrams made an interesting observation on “This Week”.
“So when people say to me sometimes, well, this had been me, I would have been prosecuted for sure. My response is, if this had been you, I don’t know if, seven years later, they would have revisited this misdemeanor and try to turn it into a felony. So it is a challenging legal theory. They may be able to do it, but there are problems here.”

And it happened . The whole nation is retreating for Easter /Passover break . So what better time to indict Trump . They will let the details stew for more than a week with the compliant press reporting ..... "the first former President indicted " .
Clueless will talk of his favorite ice cream as he has in the last couple days during the Nashville shooting story.

Easter is next weekend.

New York grand jury investigating Trump will take a break for part of April : NPR (https://www.npr.org/2023/03/29/1166890507/manhattan-jury-investigating-trump-break-april)

Check out House and Senate April schedules .
2023CongressionalCalendar.pdf (nab.org) (https://www.nab.org/documents/advocacy/2023CongressionalCalendar.pdf)

Easter is not a fed holiday? That's surprising. I guess when they are not in session, it doesn't make much difference.

At any rate, I need that job. Cushy.

The only person in the nation with more time off is Clueless Joe He takes long weekends . 40% of his time.


Joe Biden, 'vacationer in chief' | Washington Examiner (https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/washington-secrets/joe-biden-vacationer-in-chief)

Last year Bragg reduced 53% of felonies to misdemeanors.


The indictment is allegedly 30 counts . Probably more than just the Stormy Daniels payoff. This trial will be the greatest reality show of all times .


https://tenor.com/view/al-paciono-pacino-and-justice-for-all-out-of-order-gif-13807224

Manhattan Grand Jury exiting the court house

https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/336138120_434157522264711_2479358036744884232_n.jp g?stp=dst-jpg_s720x720&_nc_cat=108&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=8bfeb9&_nc_ohc=pj816133b3kAX80JxB4&_nc_ht=scontent-atl3-1.xx&oh=00_AfByxKnOnVp00XRZgQ8YqMHWq4ReI4SeumM9tCCbXBn6 Hw&oe=642C2C5B

The Bee nails it

https://scontent-atl3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/339065747_1222681935031316_3860347893743064253_n.j pg?_nc_cat=102&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=8AePWHNl_qYAX-SiJxh&_nc_ht=scontent-atl3-2.xx&oh=00_AfDrDQDdCIq87M0S2E6u7iz4SletFMew9umezFH6wuNc EA&oe=642AE320

Former US Attorney Andrew McCarthy's take on the indictment

"If reporting is accurate – and note that the reporting is based on information from Trump lawyers after Bragg’s office advised them of the indictment – then the district attorney has charged a whopping 34 counts against Trump. Thirty-four counts … in a case, again, that federal prosecutors decided wasn’t worth charging at all,” “This is a classic abuse of power. Unscrupulous prosecutors will sometimes camouflage with quantity their case’s lack of quality.”
The whopping outrage in Trump's indictment | Fox News (https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/whopping-outrage-trump-indictment)

Madam Mimi of course does not get the American Justice system

Nancy Pelosi on Twitter: "The Grand Jury has acted upon the facts and the law. No one is above the law, and everyone has the right to a trial to prove innocence. Hopefully, the former President will peacefully respect the system, which grants him that right." / Twitter (https://twitter.com/SpeakerPelosi/status/1641594971462541315?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5 Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1641594971462541315%7Ctwgr% 5E163145feb1f40742d77ecada96614c9d5e6349a9%7Ctwcon %5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.americanthinker.com%2Fbl og%2F2023%2F03%2Fnancy_pelosi_makes_explicit_how_t he_left_is_violating_all_american_norms.html)

For a basic civics lesson . No one has to prove their innocence . It is the burden of the prosecution to prove his guilt .

This should not surprise anyone who saw her orchestrate 3 kangaroo courts against Trump in 4 years .

No one is beneath the law either . If this were anyone else but Trump there would be no charges. Trump is the victim of ambitious prosecutors who campaigned to get Trump ..... who's campaigns were funded by George Soros ,and who see a conviction of Trump as a stepping stone to higher office.

And she was the House Speaker for several years. Just amazing how little respect for the law some people exhibit.

If reports are accurate, he may attempt to “bootstrap” the misdemeanor into a felony (and longer statute of limitations) by alleging an effort to evade federal election charges.
While Trump will be the first former president indicted, he will not be the last if that is the standard for prosecution.
It is still hard to believe that Bragg would primarily proceed (https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-indicted-manhattan-da-probe-stormy-daniels-hush-money-payment) on such a basis. There have been no other crimes discussed over months, but we will have to wait to read the indictment to confirm the grounds.
What we do know is the checkered history leading to this moment.
The Justice Department (https://www.foxnews.com/category/politics/justice-department) itself declined to prosecute the federal election claim against Trump. There was ample reason to decline.
The Justice Department went down this road before and it did not go well. They tried to prosecute former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards on stronger grounds (which I also criticized (https://jonathanturley.org/2012/06/14/justice-department-drops-remaining-counts-against-john-edwards/__;!!PxibshUo2Yr_Ta5B!yZUihBT9x8laZhRwepLqQ5wh7Nsp ItZzjGAaCIHyVE00hmmGv_BRJQ5qfUD6_7C10TB_le-RfgxprKgPlCydgn_dqQ%24)) and failed. In that case, campaign officials and donors were directly involved in covering up an affair that produced a child.
At the time, Edwards’ wife was suffering from cancer. The prosecution still collapsed. The reason is that you need to show the sole purpose for paying hush money in such a scandal. For any married man, let alone a celebrity, there are various reasons to want to bury a sexual scandal.
For Trump, there was an upcoming election but he was also a married man allegedly involved in an affair with a porn star. He was also a television celebrity who is subject to the standard “morals clause” that’s triggered by criminal conduct or conduct that brings “public disrepute, scandal, or embarrassment.” These clauses are written broadly to protect the news organizations and their “brand.”
Various presidents from Warren Harding to Bill Clinton (https://www.foxnews.com/category/politics/the-clintons) have been involved in efforts to hush up affairs. They also had different reasons for burying such scandals, including politics. However, scandals are messy matters with a complex set of motivations. Showing that Trump only acted with the future election in mind — rather than his current marriage or television contracts — is implausible. That was likely the same calculus made by the Justice Department.
That is also why the use of the “bootstrapping” theory as the primary charge would be an indictment of the prosecution and its own conduct. The office has already been tarnished by the conduct of the prosecutors who pushed this theory.


The Trump Indictment: Making History in the Worst Possible Way – JONATHAN TURLEY (https://jonathanturley.org/2023/03/31/the-trump-indictment-making-history-in-the-worst-possible-way/)

Lavrentiy Beria, head of Joseph Stalin's secret police famously said "show me the person and I'll find you the crime" .

Bragg had added a new corollary to that . He is charging Trump without any specific crime.
He is patching together trivial alleged misdeamenors ,all of which are past the statute of limitiation and claiming they were part of a larger conspiracy to violate election laws .

One obvious problem is that the Feds ,after an extensive investigation decided to not charge Trump Bragg doesn't have jurisdiction of Federal elections and Trump did not run for any NY office.

Bragg is piling on adding quantity to a weak case . His 34 charges is as if a defendent went into a 7-11 and allegedly stole 34 candy packages . No sane prosecutor would charge 34 times , Of course Bragg does not charge looters at all. By loading up an indictment with dozens of charges, he wants to signal to the eventual jury that Trump must be guilty of something. This is abuse of power .

The DOJ is clear on this issue for Federal crimes . But Bragg has a blank check.at the city level .

In order to promote the fair administration of justice, as well as the perception of justice, all United States Attorneys should charge in indictments and informations as few separate counts as are reasonably necessary to prosecute fully and successfully and to provide for a fair sentence on conviction. To the extent reasonable, indictments and informations should be limited to fifteen counts or less, so long as such a limitation does not jeopardize successful prosecution or preclude a sentence appropriate to the nature and extent of the offenses involved.
215. Number of Counts in Indictments | JM | Department of Justice (https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-215-number-counts-indictments)

His post arraignment presser was notable in that he refused to identify to the press the exact statutes Trump is being charged under . Eventually he will have to lay his cards on the table.

The Dems may be doing Snoopy dances today . But this establishes precedence they may regret .
If your opposition is polling well find any charge and let a partisan local DA run with it . The indictment becomes an electioneering tool .

the precent is of course for President campaigns . People of Texas remember the rail roading of Tom DeLay. He was Repub majority whip during Newt's Congress. He was indicted in 2005 on bogus election violations .

He resigned his position in Congress . He was convicted in a Dem district and sentenced to 3 years in prison. He appealed . The Austin Court of Appeals, ruled that "the evidence in the case was 'legally insufficient to sustain DeLay's convictions'", and DeLay was formally acquitted.
But for the Dems it was mission accomplished ,They got a conservative lawmaker out of Congress.

As Reagan secretary of labor Ray Donovan famously said after his acquittal, “Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?”

It's a sad day when prosecutors begin to be used in a political fashion. It's going to be interesting to see if Trump is convicted on anything.

another slow day

Just another day at the office. That was Bragg's contention about the Trump charges. But was it ? According to the records ,Bragg's office rarely make the charges .

The 34 charges are felony in the first-degree falsifying business records with the “intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.”
Braggs office has gone after 8 people since 2019 with that charge. Statewide that charge was made 300 times .

The most common outcome is . . . a guilty plea to disorderly conduct.

Bragg's office has rarely pursued the charges Trump faces (timesunion.com) (https://www.timesunion.com/state/article/data-bragg-s-office-rarely-pursued-charges-trump-17878578.php)