Alvin Bragg is the 37th District Attorney elected in Manhattan. Photo courtesy of Manhattan DA.
The Manhattan DA Selectively Prosecutes
From Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy:
DA Alvin Bragg is abusing his office to target President Trump while he’s reduced a majority of felonies [in NYC], including violent crimes, to misdemeanors. He has different rules for political opponents.
According to Peter Van Buren in Spectator, the tactics from the DA’s office have led to a “surge in crimes committed in Manhattan as prosecutions have fallen.”
Bragg claims that equity demands he selectively prosecute; he reduced 52 percent of all felony charges to misdemeanors, the opposite of what he did to Trump.
How precious is the rule of law to Democrats these days? It looks like it depends upon only one thing: “a belief among the majority of us that while no one is above the law will be applied fairly to those it does affect.
Do You Believe in Magic
Whether you loathe Trump or love him, continues Mr. Van Buren, you know this: “what is happening in Manhattan right now is unfair and inconsistent with a nation that once prided itself on believing in the rule of law. Who is still a believer today?”
In the previously sealed indictment, DT is charged with 34 felony counts for falsification of business records. These felonies normally would be prosecuted in NY as a misdemeanor, explains Mr. Van Buren.
But Bragg’s office apparently bumped up all the charges to felonies on the grounds that the conduct was intended to conceal another underlying crime: violating election finance law (“with intent to defraud and intent to commit another crime and aid and conceal the commission thereof”). There is more smoke than fire, and it’s no wonder the DA wanted to keep this mess sealed as long as possible and the judge won’t allow cameras in the courtroom. How specifically is this unfair?
Two Basic Prosecutorial Transgressions
If anything, Trump should have been charged with a simple misdemeanor, the so-called falsification of business records, for his seemingly characterizing money legally paid to Stormy Daniels and others as part of a nondisclosure agreement as “legal expenses” as well as payments to the National Enquirer to “catch and kill” a story about Trump’s alleged affair with Karen McDougal and other stories.
A Tempest over Bookkeeping
Bumping all this up to felony charges based solely on Bragg’s supposition that the error was made with the intent to cheat on campaign finance laws is just overcharging. It’s trying to make all this seem more important than it is.
Fulfilling a Campaign Promise
Alvin Bragg is fulfilling a campaign promise: Bragg ran for office on prosecuting Donald Trump.
(Alvin Bragg) is fulfilling a campaign promise and paying off his backers.
Bragg, in the words of law professor Jonathan Turley, had a “very public, almost Hamlet-like process where he debated whether he could do this bootstrapping theory [bumping misdemeanors up to felonies]. He stopped it for a while and was pressured to go forward with it. All of that smacks more of politics than prosecutorial discretion.”
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