Free Republic

When the main casualty is the rule of law itself.On May 30th, a Manhattan jury found former President Donald Trump guilty of thirty-four jerry-rigged felony charges brought against Mr. Trump by the progressive Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. The fix was in, and the main casualty was the rule of law itself.District Attorney Bragg abused his prosecutorial powers by targeting Mr. Trump personally, as he had promised to do when he ran for office, and then coming up with concocted felony offenses to charge him with. The Trump-hating district attorney magically alchemized a statute of limitations-barred misdemeanor of falsifying business...

House Speaker Mike Johnson joined Fox Sunday to discuss House Republicans’ plans to investigate Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg and Special Counsel Jack Smith for targeting political opponents. It sounds like just more words from Speaker Johnson. We want to see action! Shannon Bream: Now, I want to ask you about the verdict. Clearly, you think it’s a travesty, as many people do. And I think having watched the trial, there are many grounds, fertile territory for the Trump team to use on appeal, but that’s going to take time. In the meantime, there are a number of Republicans out there...

Last Thursday, in a courtroom in Manhattan that voted against him 88-12% in 2020, a jury, heavily persuaded by a judge, who contributed to Joe Biden in 2020, convicted President Donald Trump on 34 counts of falsification of business records. The case concerns payments that were made to former Trump attorney Michael Cohen in 2017. Cohen claimed the payments were reimbursement for a $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels to ensure her silence about an alleged sexual encounter with President Trump.

Yo-Yo Note: Longish read but very good from someone who is NOT a MAGA person.Ever since Donald Trump emerged as a presidential contender nine years ago, America’s most esteemed scholars and journalists have argued that he was violating democratic norms. Trump, they said, was ignoring the stabilizing, unwritten rules and values of American politics. This was evident in his vulgar language, vilification of immigrants, criticisms of the press, lack of cooperation with the intelligence community, and refusal to accept the 2020 election results.But the Democrats’ relentless effort to imprison Trump has undermined the rule of law, faith in the criminal...

As the dust starts to settle on Trump’s conviction newly-minted status as an Outlaw President, legal scholars are starting to weigh in on the severe problems with Alvin Bragg’s case. First up, Ed Whelan passes on this this piece by Mr. Elie Honig, explaining some of the problems with the conviction: Trump's superpower is the ability to bring out the worst in both his supporters and his opponents. Bragg's prosecution sure strikes me as blatant example of latter, for reasons CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig spells out in this powerful piece. https://t.co/y6CGA6Ald9 — Ed Whelan (@EdWhelanEPPC) May 31, 2024...

The conviction of former President Donald Trump in Manhattan of 34 felonies produced citywide celebrations. ... The celebrants would be wise to think twice before mounting this trophy kill on the political wall. The Trump trial is a target-rich environment for an appeal, with multiple layers of reversible error, in my view. I am less convinced by suggestions that the case could be challenged on the inability of Trump receiving a fair trial in a district that voted roughly 90 percent against him. The problem was not the jury, but the prosecutors and the judge. Some of the most compelling...

Former Commissioner of the Federal Elections Commission, Brad Smith, a preeminent expert on campaign finance law has taken to social media to lash out against the Manhattan trial that led to the conviction of former President Donald Trump. Judge Juan Merchan had prevented Trump’s defense team from seating Smith as a witness or even submitting his testimony to the jury. Smith had planned on testifying that Donald Trump’s filing of a “hush money” payment as a “legal expense” was not a crime against federal elections law. Indeed, federal prosecutors had passed up on the case prior to Alvin Bragg, the...

The office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who is backed by Soros, is now under fire for allegedly leaking sensitive sentencing information about former President Donald Trump to the far-left media. She described them as ‘street fighters,’ who indicated that Bragg might push for a tough one-year imprisonment, primarily to ensure Trump faces the daunting conditions of Rikers Island. “I spent this morning speaking to someone from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. They’re called street fighters. He believes that they will recommend a one-year term in prison. And that is because when you spend a year in prison in...

After years of trying — in the words of the judge — “to get the damned rascal in this court,” it was a conviction that many welcomed. But those words were not from Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, and the conviction was not that of former President Donald Trump. Rather they were from US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase, at the end of the 18th century, when America embraced political prosecutions to target critics and opponents. The man on trial then was James T. Callender, a muckraking writer critical of President John Adams. For accusing politicians of corruption, Callender...

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan on Friday called on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and prosecutor Matthew Colangelo to testify for the “political prosecution” of former President Donald Trump. Mr. Jordan, Ohio Republican, teed up a hearing where both men will testify in front of the Weaponization of Federal Government Subcommittee on June 13. “This hearing will examine actions by state and local prosecutors to engage politically motivated prosecutions of federal officials,” Mr. Jordan wrote. “In particular the recent political prosecution of President Donald Trump by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.”

U.S. — Following the reading of the guilty verdict in the first criminal trial of a former president, Democrats across the country celebrated Donald Trump being convicted of whatever it was he did. Though none of the Democrats who commented publicly on the verdict were able to identify what crime Trump allegedly committed, they were unanimously overjoyed that there was a volition of some type for some thing that was done at some point. "It's time for Trump to answer for that one thing from that one time," said former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. "No one should ever do that...

Thinking further out loud The issue is how to get out of the New York system and bring the case to the Supreme Court, which may or may not take it up. That is why I look to Bush v Gore, where the S Ct decided to step in BECAUSE it was a presidential election. There was another court involved, the Florida Supreme Court. And it was that court that the Supreme Court believed was violating the Equal Protection Clause. That was the doctrine it settled on, given the unequal treatment of voters. In New York, you would file the...

Verdict in.

Former President Donald Trump’s lawyer told jurors Tuesday they “should want and expect more” from prosecutors who claim the presumptive GOP nominee engaged in business fraud to boost his first run for the White House. Defense attorney Todd Blanche, in his closing argument, said the state’s evidence showed little more than standard business practices. “President Trump is innocent. He did not commit any crimes, and the district attorney has not met their burden of proof, period,” Mr. Blanche said as Mr. Trump’s hush money trial neared its conclusion.

Abstract artist Jackson Pollock once said that his paintings have no objective meaning, so the best way for people to enjoy them is to stop looking for it. For many of us, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has created a new school of abstract law where there is no need for objective meaning. The jury is simply supposed to enjoy it for what it is: a chance to convict Donald Trump. Pollock was famous for his painting drips on large canvases. Bragg has achieved the same effect by regenerating a dead misdemeanor on falsifying business records as 34 felony counts....

Corrupt and biased Judge Juan Merchan has so far refused to release the jury instructions to the public after Bragg’s prosecutors and Trump’s attorneys sparred over the order during a conference earlier this week. Jury instructions can make or break a case for either side. No doubt Judge Merchan’s jury instructions “will be horrendously poisonous” Mark Levin said earlier this week. Judge Merchan however sided with Bragg’s prosecutors and ruled the jury does NOT need to unanimously agree on the “predicate” crime Trump committed. “In other words: If some jurors believe that Trump falsified business documents solely to cover up...

Fireworks and another Cohen meltdown yesterday.

As is evident to anyone with even half a brain, the Trump trial in New York City is a farce. What many may not know is how Donald Trump has been hunted since the day he declared himself a candidate for President a second time. We shall see the amazing coincidences that have followed since. Joe BidenEven before Trump announced his candidacy for a second term as President Joe Biden was all but ordering Merrick Garland to prosecute Trump. That set in motion a galaxy of actions with the single goal of imprisoning Biden's political opposition all in the name...

democrats, in deep depression over seeing Alvin Bragg's ridiculous case against Trump get blown out of the water, have abandoned one windmill and turned their focus on a new one- Justices of the Supreme Court. Hakeem Jeffries "Samuel Alito should apologize immediately for disrespecting the American flag and sympathizing with right-wing violent insurrectionists. He must recuse himself from cases involving the 2020 election and former President Donald Trump." Jeffries cheered on protests at the homes of SCOTUS Justices. Bottom scraper Tristan SnellOne justice openly supported the coup. Another justice’s wife may have participated in the coup. Neither of those justices...

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg laid out his 34-count indictment of President Trump with links to underlying documents in this press release dated April 4, 2023. The indictment relies on section 175.10 of New York’s criminal law (“Falsifying business records in the first degree”): “A person is guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree when he commits the crime of falsifying business records in the second degree, and when his intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.”In his most recent update on the trial, Andrew McCarthy concisely...