(Originally published in Front Page Mag.)
How justice works – and doesn’t.
Earlier this week, Donald Trump became the first former President to surrender to indictment charges brought upon him by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, including a reported payout to former porn star Stormy Daniels. (He would plead “not guilty” to these charges before returning to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.)
Bragg insists that he conducted a “thorough investigation” into the matter before issuing the indictment order late last week. But…does it really hold any weight?
Rolling Stone published a very informative opinion piece, explaining why Bragg’s case against Trump is nothing short of a “mystery.”
After citing what we do know about the case built up against the former President, writer Ken White proclaimed, “What we don’t know – at least with the precision necessary to evaluate the case’s strengths and weaknesses – is the District Attorney’s specific legal theory of how Trump was defrauding anyone and how he was promoting or concealing a crime by doing so.”
Exactly. When Bragg was putting together his case, he did so without investigating all the facts and details surrounding it. It’s as if he dug up just enough to make the indictment stick, and then had those poor New York police officers go through a nightmarish set-up just to bring Trump in to hear what was being thrown against him.
“We don’t know Bragg’s theory of how he’d (prove that Trump falsified the books with intent to defraud), because neither the indictment nor the Statement of Facts spells it out.”
Now, of course, there will be detractors who believe Trump is guilty right off the bat, because “just look at him.” But need I remind you that the United States of America is all about “liberty and justice for all.” Not justice for President Joe Biden and whoever his allies are. Justice. For. All. We need to remember that.
National Review decided to delve a little further, stating how Bragg didn’t just come up with one felony count, but thirty–four.
“The 34 counts are arrived at by taking what is a single course of conduct and absurdly slicing it into parts, each one of which is charged as a separate felony carrying its own potential four-year prison term,” author Andrew C. McCarthy noted.
Exactly. Unless there are several crimes being committed at once, like an assault on several people, then it should be treated as a singular crime. But the idea that Bragg divided it up just to make Trump look more guilty is insane. And the fact he chose to make each separate payment a felony count? That’s not how justice works.
As for this process, McCarthy adds, “The jury may flush most of the indictment down the drain, but the unscrupulous prosecutor knows if he can secure a single guilty verdict, even with 33 acquittals, he has achieved his objective of branding his target a felon.”
So apparently Bragg is simply interested in getting Trump guilty on a single charge, even if the other 33 don’t stick. He’ll then believe he’s done his job in doing so. It’s like playing Lotto with a man’s freedom. Doesn’t make much sense, does it?
But perhaps the biggest cardinal sin of all this? Despite all of Bragg’s technical explanation and the public finger-pointing, McCarthy notes that “the indictment fails to say what the crime is.”
This is what I’ve been saying from the word go. Paying out someone on a settlement deal is not a crime. It happens all the time. If someone leaves a business, for example, they make some sort of deal where they get money out of it, and, depending on the nature of said business, that means small payouts over time. Not a crime.
To add, “Nowhere in the indictment does the grand jury specify what other crime Trump fraudulently endeavored to commit or conceal by falsifying his records.” Which makes the indictment nothing more than an empowered moment for Bragg to yell, “Gotcha!” when he doesn’t really “gotcha.”
My hope is that justice will prevail. That the court will reconvene later this year and, in that time frame, Trump’s legal team will be able to show just how little water this case actually holds. And that should be that, with Bragg left holding an empty bag with zero convictions.
McCarthy concluded his article by looking at Bragg and going, “What a disgrace.” I couldn’t agree more. Let justice be served. For all.
Michael Letts is the Founder, President, and CEO of InVest USA, a national grassroots non-profit organization that is helping hundreds of communities provide thousands of bulletproof vests for their police forces through educational, public relations, sponsorship, and fundraising programs. He also has over 30 years of law enforcement experience under his belt, hence his pro-police stance for his brothers and sisters in blue.
