OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
John Ratcliffe, a former federal prosecutor and GOP congressman from Texas who served a stint as director of national intelligence during the Trump administration laid out what he believes is the real crime following the indictment of his former boss last week by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
In an interview with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday, Ratcliffe responded to reports that former President Donald Trump could be facing as many as 30 counts, saying that whoever leaked those details to the media is guilty of a crime.
“The only felony of which we can be certain to come out of this Alvin Bragg prosecution in New York is the felony committed either by DA Bragg himself or someone on the grand jury that he’s using for this perversion of our justice system,” Ratcliffe told the “Sunday Morning Futures” anchor.
“The accused, Donald Trump, and his lawyers, don’t know what’s in this sealed indictment. But for the past, what? Seventy-two hours, the American public has been discussing supposedly 30 or 34 felony counts,” he added. “Leaking grand jury information is a felony. And so the only people capable of that would be Alvin Bragg’s team or members of the grand jury itself.”
DNI John Ratcliffe says that Alvin Bragg may have committed a felony.
Leaking grand jury information is a felony and so the only people capable of that would be Alvin Bragg’s team or members of the grand jury itself.”
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CNN and NBC News have reported, citing “two sources familiar” with the matter, that Trump is facing approximately 30 charges after being the first former president to face criminal charges.
While the exact details of the indictment remain unknown, on Sunday, Trump’s attorney Joe Tacopina stated in an interview with ABC News that he is confident that the charges relate to the documentation of hush money payments made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election, the Daily Wire noted.
Ratcliffe isn’t the only legal expert who believes someone in Bragg’s office — or the DA himself — could be in legal trouble over leaking the grand jury information.
Harvard law school professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz said, in an interview and in an op-ed over the weekend, that whoever leaked the sealed indictment is the person guilty of the only felony in the Manhattan DA’s case.
“It is likely that a serious felony has been committed right under District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s nose and he is not investigating it. Under New York law, it is a felony to leak confidential grand jury information, such as whether the jurors voted to indict. The protection of secrecy is as applicable to President Trump as it is to anyone else,” the attorney said in an op-ed for The New York Sun.
“We know that the information was disclosed while the indictment itself remains sealed and before any official announcement was made or charges brought. It is unlikely that the leak came from the Trump team, which seemed genuinely surprised,” he added.
“The most likely, though uncertain, scenario is that a person in Mr. Bragg’s office or a grand juror unlawfully leaked the sealed information. That would be a class E felony, subject to imprisonment,” he wrote.
“It is possible of course that an investigation is underway, but it seems more likely that Mr. Bragg is too busy making up a crime against the man he promised in his campaign to get than investigating a real crime that took place on his watch,” Dershowitz noted further.
Dershowitz said that it appears Bragg’s theory is that the former president should have disclosed why he paid for a non-disclosure agreement to adult film star Stormy Daniels which would defeat the purpose to the non-disclosure agreement.
“Why would Mr. Trump pay the money in the first place if he had to publicly disclose the embarrassing reason? Furthermore, no one in history has ever been indicted for listing ‘legal expenses’ for setting a potentially embarrassing payment of hush money,” the legal expert added.
Later, during an appearance on Fox News, Dershowitz observed, “If somebody on the grand jury, prosecutor or grand juror, leaked the fact that there was a vote to indict, that is a one – five year class E felony under New York.”
“Bragg now has a prima facia case that a crime has been committed right in his building, but as far as I know he’s not investigating it,” he added.
“We don’t know who did the leak. It is conceivable it could have been done by somebody in the Trump administration, but I doubt it because they seem to have been taken by great surprise, so the most likely source of the leak is someone from within Bragg’s office or within the grand jury. That’s where the focus ought to be,” he noted further.
