Jim Hartman
On April 5, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted former President Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to “hush money” payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels.
The lawsuit was widely criticized by Republican political leaders and conservative legal analysts as an overreach. It set a dangerous precedent for criminalizing political opponents and damages the public’s faith in our justice system.
Bragg’s case against Trump ran into a wall of skepticism – including from left-leaning legal experts, liberal pundits and some Trump Republican detractors who have otherwise been strong critics.
Bragg revived a case that he appeared to abandon months ago. Legal experts questioned how he was able to elevate the “falsification of business records” charges into felonies, a move that requires evidence that Trump attempted to conceal a second crime.
Others focused on the delay in bringing charges – six years after the underlying conduct. Expect that Trump will seek to toss the case for exceeding the statute of limitations.
A dubious lawsuit. It’s very easy to see this case dismissed for legal insufficiency.
On June 9, the Justice Department’s special counsel Jack Smith unsealed a stunning federal indictment against Trump.
All told, Trump is facing 37 charges: 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information, one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice, three counts of concealing or withholding documents in a federal investigation, and two counts of making false statements and scheming to conceal his continued possession of classified documents.
Trump-friendly legal analyst Jonathan Turley acknowledged the indictment as “extremely damning.” Alan Dershowitz, who defended Trump during his 2020 impeachment trial, found the indictment “strong” and the evidence “powerful.”
The documents Trump took are “among the most sensitive secrets the country has,” said Bill Barr, Trump’s attorney general. “If even half of it is true, then he’s toast,” Barr concluded.
The offenses detailed in the indictment are serious. Trump took from the White House hundreds of sensitive documents at the end of his term. Some were classified at the highest levels – records related to U.S. nuclear programs and potential weaknesses, war plans with Iran, foreign and weapons capabilities, among others. Many were haphazardly stored in boxes around Mar-a-Lago, poorly secured.
The National Archives asked Trump repeatedly to return these materials. He ignored some of these requests and rejected others. He played games with the FBI, enlisting his aides to hide boxes from investigators and insisting his lawyers lie on his behalf.
In his defense, Trump and his defenders assert a double standard.
Republicans protest Trump is being prosecuted by the same Justice Department that let Hillary Clinton off the hook over her own classified-documents scandal.
Clinton was “extremely careless” – to use then-FBI Director James Comey’s phrasing – when she put them on a private email server in her New York home as secretary of state. Comey’s decision not to recommend charges for Clinton was controversial at the time. The facts warranted her prosecution.
In the court of public opinion, the first question asked will be about two standards of justice. President Biden was found to have old, classified files stored in his garage next to his sports car. Biden was not apologetic.
The garage, Biden claimed, was the equivalent to a secure facility. “By the way, my Corvette is in a locked garage, it’s not like they’re sitting out on the street.”
Additional classified documents from his years as a senator and as vice president were discovered elsewhere in his Wilmington, Delaware home and at his Penn Center office.
Appointed special counsel Robert Hur is investigating Biden.
However, the conduct of Trump, Clinton and Biden is not equivalent.
Trump is charged not only with mishandling highly classified materials, but with executing a remarkably clumsy scheme to avoid returning them to the government and lying about it.
Trump’s intent to deceive is highlighted in the indictment.
E-mail Jim Hartman at lawdocman1@aol.com.