OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Legal experts that include former prosecutors have said that New York City prosecutor Alvin Bragg’s case against former President Donald Trump, who was indicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, faces substantial legal challenges.
As reported by Fox News Digital, The 2024 Republican presidential candidate has pleaded not guilty to the numerous accusations against him and has denounced the legal action as a politically motivated witch hunt. And it turns out that he’s not the only one who thinks so.
“If it wasn’t Donald Trump, no prosecutor in the world would have touched this,” noted former assistant district attorney Daniel Bibb, who spent more than two decades trying murder cases in Manhattan, in an interview with the news outlet. “If you and I did what Trump did, we never would have been charged.”
While Trump is the first former or current U.S. president to face criminal charges, experts argue that the case against him is anything but a slam dunk.
Fox News notes:
The indictment uses a novel legal theory and relies heavily on the testimony of the president’s former fixer Michael Cohen, a disbarred attorney and convicted liar.
Trump is accused of falsifying internal business records when he had Cohen arrange a $130,000 hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential campaign to keep her quiet about an alleged sexual encounter. He has denied the affair.
Cohen, then an employee of the Trump Organization, used a shell corporation to pay off Daniels one month before the election.
After Trump’s victory, Cohen was reimbursed $420,000 disguised as payments for legal services rendered pursuant to a phony retainer agreement. The figure included the tax he’d have to pay on the income and a $60,000 bonus.
Bragg has contended that the payment made to Stormy Daniels by Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen was an unlawful campaign contribution as it went unreported and exceeded the permitted limit under federal law.
In 2018, Cohen was found guilty of federal offenses, including campaign-finance violations, for arranging hush-money payments to Daniels and Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who alleges that she had an affair with Trump, an allegation he denies, the outlet continued.
Just months later, Cohen pleaded guilty to providing false testimony to Congress.
After a relatively short prison stint, Cohen authored a book that ripped Trump as “a cheat, a mobster, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, [and] a con man” while he has continued to attack the former president in any media venue he can get.
“If Michael Cohen told you today was Wednesday would you believe that unless you looked at your own calendar?” said former Manhattan prosecutor and now defense lawyer Mark Bederow in an interview with Fox News Digital.
Bederow suggested that prosecutors might have to summon Daniels to testify in court, a move that could backfire since some likely see her as an unsympathetic opportunist. “She has repeatedly made contradictory statements to the press and has shown an insatiable appetite for media attention, the attorney said,” Fox News reported.
To elevate the misdemeanor charge of falsifying business records to a felony, the indictment contends that Trump had the intention of committing or concealing a secondary offense. However, the indictment does not specify what this additional crime is, and Bragg has stated that he is not legally obligated to reveal it during a press conference.
When questioned by a reporter, Bragg insinuated that Trump may have broken both state and federal campaign finance and tax regulations.
Richard Hasen, an expert in election law and professor at UCLA’s School of Law, told the network: “The bottom line is that it’s murky. And the district attorney did not offer a detailed legal analysis as to how they can do this.”
Bederow added: “If you bring an unprecedented case like this against a former president and current presidential candidate, it’s essential for the credibility of the criminal justice system to present a clear and cogent explanation of your theory as opposed to saying ‘I don’t have to tell you.'”
Quoting HBO’s hit series, ‘The Wire,’ he added: “If you come at the king, you best not miss.”
