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DA Bragg Drops Charges Against Columbia University Anti-Israel Protesters

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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.


The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said that it will not be bringing charges against more than twenty protesters who broke into and sacked a Columbia University building during an anti-Israel protest.

The ruling, which was made public in court on Thursday, affects more than 30 people who were charged with misdemeanor trespassing for their part in the occupation of Columbia’s Hamilton Hall, according to ABC News and Reuters.

The district attorney’s office proposed to drop charges against 13 protesters because they would not be arrested again in the next six months. However, none of them accepted the proposal, leading to a scheduled return to court next month.

In the courtroom, some protesters were observed covering their faces with masks and keffiyehs, a common practice among college student demonstrators. The only remaining defendant from the Hamilton Hall occupation is James Carlson, an anarchist with a history of agitation. Carlson is accused of setting an Israeli flag on fire and destroying a police camera in a holding cell following his arrest.

The New York Police Department arrested dozens of protesters who occupied the building after weeks of protests opposing Israel’s war effort against Hamas and expressing opposition to U.S. support for it. The movement led to Columbia’s decision to divest from multinational corporations doing business in Israel.

It was reported that no police officers or protesters were seriously injured during the arrests. Additionally, students are currently facing disciplinary proceedings from Columbia’s administration.

“A group of protesters crossed a new line with the occupation of Hamilton Hall. It was a violent act that put our students, as well as the protesters, at risk. I walked through the building and saw the damage, which was distressing,” Columbia president Minouche Shafik said in a video message after the arrests.

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Columbia canceled its main campus graduation ceremony due to anti-Israel disruptions after switching to hybrid classes for the rest of the semester. The protest encampment at Columbia inspired similar demonstrations at other prestigious universities nationwide.

While he was soft on crime when it came to the protesters, Bragg and his team of attorneys successfully convicted former President Donald Trump last month of 34 counts of falsifying business records.

Trump paid his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, back for a $130,000 payment he made to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election. This is what the business records charges were about. Cohen was the main witness in the trial, but he is a criminal who has been convicted of fraud and financial crimes.

Conservatives didn’t like how Bragg’s prosecution used a new legal theory to get around the statute of limitations and turn the business records charges into crimes for hiding a crime.

However, Bragg’s victory in prosecuting Trump on all 34 counts in his hush-money case could potentially backfire on Special Counsel Jack Smith’s attempts to find the 45th president guilty of 44 more charges that were presented in federal courts in the districts of Florida and Washington, D.C.

After a season of legal stalemate, the first guilty verdict against an American president may boost Mr. Smith’s confidence, but there are also some possible risks for the prosecutor.

The conviction might prompt judges and justices to take into account the precedent that the presidential prosecution set.

The New York County ruling coincides with the US Supreme Court deliberating Trump’s argument that presidents should have perpetual “absolute” immunity for their actions in their official capacities.

According to the special counsel, no such protection or illegal activity, such as plotting to rig the election, is always criminally prosecutable.

The immunity question does not immediately affect the hush money verdict at this time. It seems that Trump has acknowledged the private nature of the conduct in question.

According to Judge Juan Merchan, many of the case’s circumstances involved running for office rather than holding it, and his attorneys failed to bring up the issue promptly.

A federal judge, Alvin Hellerstein, has ruled that, in respect of the payments to an adult film star, Stormy Daniels, the “evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the matter was a purely personal item of the President — a cover-up of an embarrassing event. Hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a president’s official acts.”

The justices may find that Trump’s argument for immunity gains strength in light of his conviction. In his brief to the high court, the 45th president warned that subjecting a president to prosecution could result in “years of post-office trauma at the hands of political opponents.” He argued that the threat of future prosecution and imprisonment could be used as a political weapon.

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Trump’s lawyer at the oral arguments, John Sauer, warned the court that if Smith’s argument prevails, “every current president will face potential blackmail and extortion by their political opponents.” A state conviction by an elected prosecutor could make this prediction more credible to the justices, who will decide how much protection the president should have.

However, there are limits to what the justices could do for Trump. Justice Neil Gorsuch’s point that a narrow view of immunity could lead to presidents trying to pardon themselves only applies to federal crimes, not state ones.

Trump may even claim that the prosecution as a whole violated his federal rights.

For example, the jury instructions’ broad tolerance for conviction could be used to support a claim that the jury’s impartiality and due process were violated by the Constitution.

The 45th president may also argue that the way the allegations have been constructed against him is so unique and customized that it amounts to selective prosecution, in the same way, that Lavrentiy Beria used to argue, “Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.”

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