Donald Trump indicted: Alvin Bragg has opened the Pandora’s box of presidential political prosecutions
Tiana Lowe
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Most criminal inquiries begin with prosecutors honing in on a crime. A Manhattan grand jury’s decision to indict Donald Trump is interesting because, in the first criminal indictment of a former (and prospective) president, it is a crusade against a person in search of a crime.
Trump’s sources were right — just days after he took to his social media platform to get announce his imminent arrest, the other shoe has dropped. Trump will be charged with … well, what exactly?
DONALD TRUMP INDICTED: FORMER PRESIDENT PREDICTS ‘WITCH-HUNT WILL BACKFIRE MASSIVELY’
Unlike the weak Justice Department investigation and the stronger Fulton County case, both into Trump’s disgraceful attempt to steal the 2020 election, there is not any emotional resonance to the Stormy Daniels case. But more importantly for Democrats, this case is a lot weaker than the classified documents fracas.
At the center of the national spotlight is a one-night stand that allegedly took place 17 years ago. Michael Cohen paid Stormy Daniels the infamous hush money seven years ago, and Allen Weisselberg, then the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, reimbursed Cohen with company funds shortly thereafter.
We don’t have the charges the grand jury voted upon, but we can guess. If prosecutors get the goods to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump specifically instructed Cohen and Weisselberg to pay the hush money purely for the sake of winning an election — not, for example, to protect his marriage and his wife from his infidelity — then maybe there are a couple of campaign finance and tax law violations.
But that’s a huge “if,” and it’s one that Democrats might come to regret.
Former Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance spent years and millions investigating Trump in pursuit of a crime. Successor Alvin Bragg won his seat specifically by bragging that he would target Trump. After more than a year in the driver’s seat, the best Bragg could come up with was manipulating a misdemeanor, ignoring the two-year statute of limitations, and tethering it somehow to federal campaign finance law.
For Bragg’s sake, this indictment had better knock Trump out of the race and whatever Republican who makes it to the general out of public favor because the next Republican winner will face immense pressure to give as good to Democrats as Trump got. Pandora’s box has been opened, and it cannot be closed.
The flop of the Russia collusion investigation should have proven that Trump, like all politicians in a republic, can only be beaten at the ballot box. President Joe Biden did it once. Bragg wants to see if he can help the Democratic Party do it again. He will deeply regret it unless he successfully takes Trump out.