OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
The vast majority of respondents to a new poll said they don’t believe that former President Donald Trump committed any crimes in the case brought against him by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
“Just over one-third, 35 percent, of individuals believe former President Donald Trump did something overtly ‘illegal’ regarding his current criminal case in New York, according to an AP/NORC survey released Tuesday,” Breitbart News reported.
In response to allegations that Trump “covered up hush money payments to a woman who said he had an affair with her,” 35 percent, overall, said they believe Trump did something that is against the law. Another 31 percent across the board think he did something “unethical but not illegal,” while 14 percent said he did “nothing wrong,” Another 19 percent said they “don’t know enough to say.”
As expected, the majority of Democrats, 62 percent, believe Trump committed an illegal act in this case. In contrast, only two percent believe he did nothing wrong, while 27 percent stated that his actions were unethical but not illegal.
Just six percent of Republicans indicated that they believe Trump committed an illegal act, whereas 40 percent stated that he acted unethically but not illegally. Additionally, 28 percent stated that they believe Trump did nothing wrong, while 26 percent admitted they do not have enough information to form an opinion.
Additionally, 32% of independents think Trump committed an illegal act, compared to 25% who think he did so but not illegally, 15% who said he did nothing wrong, and 27% who said they lacked sufficient information to make a judgment.
The survey comes as Trump faces 34 felony charges brought by Bragg. The DA has accused Trump of falsifying business records related to a “hush money” payment to Stormy Daniels. However, it’s important to note that Trump is not being accused of “covering up a sex scandal.”
“Let’s remember that Judge Merchan is a Biden donor. Let’s remember that his family has a vested financial interest in this case or … the fact that the case is ongoing,” Jesse Binnall, one of Trump’s lawyers in his civil cases and January 6, told Breitbart News, adding that Bragg’s star witness is former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who has been convicted and jailed for lying. He has since been released.
“Their entire case is built on a house of cards because these are the words of somebody who’s an admitted perjurer,” he said, noting that lawyers “are having a hard time, at least honest ones, figuring out what exactly the criminal allegations here are.”
“The idea is in New York, if you if you have false business records, then that can be a misdemeanor. And at this point, they’re trying to connect to the campaign finance law in order to upgrade that to a felony. The problem with that is that we have ways of prosecuting campaign finance law in this country. Most of the time, it’s actually not done to the criminal justice system,” he said, adding that it is done through a “civil pipe enforcement proceeding through the Federal Election Commission.”
“And what happens in that is you have any one complaint with the Federal Election Commission, the Federal Election Commission can then take it and investigate it and then you have six commissioners,” three of whom are appointed by Democrats and three chosen by Republicans.
And they try to “come up with a decision that is not a partisan decision about whether somebody actually did violate campaign finance law,” he said, noting that it is an administrative, not criminal, proceeding.
The FEC has “not, in this case, actually concluded that these activities were criminal,” Binnall noted further.
“You got Alvin Bragg, who, of course, campaigned on going after Donald Trump, has tried to do some a number of gymnastics in order to bring this particular criminal lawsuit based on this very, very odd theory that having a nondisclosure agreement is a violation of campaign finance law, which is simply not true,” he said.