Depending on what you’ve read, seen, or heard, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against former President Donald Trump is either utterly frivolous or airtight. The truth is, of course, somewhere in between. Bragg, the first prosecutor ever to bring criminal charges against a former president, has a path to winning convictions against Trump, but it is a path strewn with legal hurdles.
Bragg has a path to winning convictions against Trump, but it is a path strewn with legal hurdles.
Bragg charged Trump with thirty-four counts of falsifying business records. The complaint centers on 11 payments Trump made to his former attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen. Trump allegedly repaid Cohen for Cohen’s hush money payments to adult film star, Stormy Daniels. Cohen, through a shell corporation, paid Daniels right before the 2016 election to stay quiet about her allegations that she had had an affair with Trump. Trump reportedly listed these payments as legal expenses, although they were not.
By incorrectly listing repayments to Cohen as legal expenses, Trump, according to Bragg, is guilty of falsifying business records. Under New York law, that crime can be charged as a felony if the prosecution can show the intent was to commit or conceal another crime.
Bragg charged Trump with felonies, not misdemeanors, by alleging that Trump falsified the business records in order to commit or conceal crimes related to election fraud and tax fraud.
Below I’ll explain why Bragg has answers for the big legal questions raised by this case.
Is the case too old? No. The hush money payments at the center of this case were made more than five years ago, and the statute of limitations in New York would typically be five years for this alleged crime. But there is an exception to the statute of limitations where a defendant has been “continuously” out of state. Because Trump lived at the White House and left there for his Mar-A-Lago home in Florida, he would…
Read the full article here
