The Democrats have now pinned their hopes of waging political lawfare against Donald Trump on Alvin Bragg.
The Manhattan District Attorney is determined not to let his fellow partisans down.
Alvin Bragg walked into court and made one demand that blindsided
Bragg was forced to agree to a 30-day delay in his criminal trial against Donald Trump after federal prosecutors stunned Bragg by finally making 30,000 pages of documents from their investigation into Michael Cohen available to the prosecution and the defense.
Cohen is the star witness in Bragg’s prosecution of Trump on nonexistent crimes.
Bragg charged Trump with falsifying business records for listing $130,000 in reimbursements to Michael Cohen as a “legal retainer” when they were to make good on Cohen paying Stormy Daniels $130,000 to settle a nondisclosure agreement in October 2016.
This would normally be considered a misdemeanor charge – one which the statute of limitations expired in 2020 – but Bragg bootstrapped it up to a felony by claiming Trump had falsified business records to cover up another crime.
What was the other crime?
It’s one Bragg has no jurisdiction over and also – more importantly – doesn’t even exist.
Bragg claimed the payment to Daniels was an illegal campaign contribution.
But the Federal Election Commission and the Biden Justice Department declined to press charges because the payment didn’t violate campaign finance law and Trump was under no obligation to list reimbursing Cohen on his federal campaign finance reports.
Now Bragg is telling Judge Juan Merchan – who donated to Joe Biden in 2020 – that he should immediately start the trial against Trump in mid-April and not allow any more delays.
“Enough is enough. These tactics by defendant and defense counsel should be stopped,” Bragg argued.
“Defendant has reacted to the USAO’s disclosures by demanding that this Court dismiss the charges, preclude witnesses, or adjourn the trial for at least ninety days; and by leveling wild and untrue allegations of misconduct and malfeasance,” Bragg continued.
“Defendant’s accusations are wholly unfounded, and the circumstances here do not come close to warranting the extreme sanctions he has sought.”
Bragg claimed the document dump about Cohen – in a case where he pled guilty to tax crimes and lying to Congress – don’t have anything to do with this case, saying there is “good reason to believe that this production contains only limited materials relevant to the subject matter of this case and that have not previously been disclosed to defendant: fewer than an estimated 270 documents,” while also arguing the vast majority of the documents are “corroborative of existing evidence.”
Bragg wrote that just 172 pages of witness testimony are relevant and that Judge Merchan needs to get this trial moving, claiming the “major relevant items are witness statements not previously in any party’s possession, consisting of about 172 pages of notes recording Cohen’s meetings with the Special Counsel investigating Russian interference.”
“Defendant has taken every possible step to evade accountability in this case for more than a year,” Bragg wrote, adding that Trump’s “motion and subsequent filings are a transparent attempt to shift the focus away from his own criminal conduct.”
The urgency in Bragg’s filing comes from the fact that all the other criminal trials Democrats have brought against Trump are floundering.
Fani Willis blew up her case against Trump with her sex scandal and a judge essentially calling her out for lying on the witness stand during a disqualification hearing.
Judge Aileen Cannon understands that her job is to administer the law and not work on Joe Biden’s political calendar, so the Mar-a-Lago document case is moving at the normal slow pace for a federal trial.
And Jack Smith’s intended Stalinist show trial in Washington D.C. over sham charges for Trump contesting the 2020 election is on hold as the Supreme Court considers Donald Trump’s presidential immunity appeal.
As Joe Biden falls further behind Trump in the polls, Democrats grow more desperate to put Trump on trial in the hopes a criminal conviction will swing the race.
Bragg understands he’s the Democrats’ last lawfare hope and he’s acting accordingly.