DA Alvin Bragg breaks new legal ground in Trump indictment

Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s landmark indictment against Donald Trump could hinge on an untested legal theory, in a move that casts doubt on a lawyer as “legally pathetic.”

The indictment handed down by a New York grand jury on Thursday remains sealed until his arrest, and the exact nature of the criminal charges against Trump is unclear.

However, the allegations allegedly stem from whether Trump falsified business records when he repaid his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen for hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 campaign.

The New York State charge of falsifying company records would be a felony unless it was committed to further or cover up another crime.

Bragg reportedly claims the second crime is the violation of federal election law to which Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018, admitting that the payment to Daniels was an unrecorded donation to Trump’s presidential campaign.

That theory would essentially rest on proving violations of federal election law by a then-candidate for federal office in state court, something experts believe was never attempted in New York.

Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, called the basis of that case “legally pathetic,” though he warned the charges could contain surprises.

“The indictment may come with a crime none of us have heard of,” Turley said in an interview with Fox news after Bragg confirmed the charges.

“But for many months this bootstrapping theory has been put out there, this idea that you could revive a felony under New York law that’s expired, which has a two-year statute of limitations, by connecting it to a federal crime, in this case the federal election violation,” he added.

“And if that’s the basis for the charge, I think that’s pretty outrageous. I think it’s legally pathetic,” he added.

The case raises a host of tricky legal questions that could potentially lead a judge to dismiss the indictment or create problems for prosecutors on appeal.

But attorney Kevin O’Brien, a former federal prosecutor and partner at Ford O’Brien Landy, told DailyMail.com that the case “is serious on several levels, even if it turns out to be only a misdemeanor charge.”

O’Brien said that “the charges are solemn, public and voted on by a group of his peers” and predicted that “while Trump will decide to dismiss the motions on various grounds, the motions are unlikely to pass.”

At the center of Bragg’s alleged case is the $130,000 Cohen admits to paying Daniels during the 2016 campaign.

In federal court, Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations and testified that Trump ordered him to pay Daniels and another woman to ensure their silence.

Federal prosecutors said Trump’s family real estate company reimbursed and falsely accounted for Cohen as legal fees, but never charged Trump with a crime.

Cohen and Daniels have said the payment was to buy her silence about a sexual encounter she had with Trump in 2006, when Trump was married to his current wife, Melania. Trump denies having had an affair with Daniels and has committed no wrongdoing.

Bragg launched his investigation after his predecessor Cyrus Vance looked twice at the payment and failed to press charges, in part because winning a conviction would depend on untested legal strategies, according to a recent book by Mark Pomerantz, a former district attorney.

The case was dropped and revived so many times that it became known in the district attorney’s office as a “zombie case,” Pomerantz wrote.

“The bottom line for me was that the ‘zombie’ case was very strong,” Pomerantz wrote in the book People vs. Donald Trump. “But was it a crime under New York law?”

Since Trump was a candidate for federal office at the time of the alleged crime, it was legally uncertain whether intent to promote or conceal a federal crime could convert a state-level falsification charge into a felony, Pomerantz wrote. .

“It’s an untested theory, but it’s not every day that a presidential candidate violates a state law,” Jerry Goldfeder, a suffrage specialist at the Stroock law firm, told Reuters when asked if state law could apply to a candidate for federal office. .

After hiring an outside law firm for advice, Vance’s office decided not to press charges, Pomerantz wrote.

“These kinds of crimes don’t necessarily fit perfectly into applicable law,” Sarah Krissoff, a partner at Day Pitney and a former federal prosecutor, told Reuters before the indictment was filed.

Trump’s lawyer Joe Tacopina said Thursday that the former president has not committed any crime and vowed to “vigorously fight this political prosecution in court.”

Tacopina has accused prosecutors of “falsifying laws” to try to bring down the former president.

He described Trump as an extortion victim who had to pay the money to Daniels because the allegations would embarrass him “regardless of the campaign.”

“He made this with personal money to prevent anything from coming out – false, but embarrassing to himself, his family, his young son. That’s not a campaign finance violation, definitely not,” Tacopina told ABC’s Good Morning America before the indictment.