After late-Thursday media reports, a district attorney’s office spokeswoman announced that a grand jury in Manhattan had charged former President Donald Trump. While the indictment is still sealed, one thing is certain: America has entered the era of “show me the guy, and I’ll show you the crime.”
Alvin L. Bragg, the Democrat district attorney in Manhattan, resurrected Joseph Stalin’s secret police director Lavrentiy Beria’s infamous boast when he targeted the former president concerning a 2016 payment to Stormy Daniels. Bragg’s decision to seek an indictment against Trump, likely for falsifying company records, heralds a new political era in which municipal prosecutors will target partisan adversaries large and small, creating a mockery of the criminal justice system.
Despite the indictment being under seal, the liberal favorites at The New York Times managed to receive the leaked allegations in Trump’s last court battle. There is no doubt that this is another example of our Sovietesque times: regardless of the fact that the legacy media is not state-run, they peddle misinformation.
Any discussion of the accusations will, of course, be speculation until the indictment is revealed. With sources informing CNN late Thursday that the grand jury indicted Trump with more than 30 counts, the prognosis is much more difficult. According to previous reports, the D.A.’s criminal case against Trump appears to focus on the N.Y. Penal code, Sections 175.05 and 175.10.
What does Section 175.05 relate to? Falsifying business records in the second degree occurs when someone makes or causes a false entry into an enterprise’s books with the intent to defraud. Section 175.10 upgrades the charges to a “second-degree” misdemeanor in the event the person falsified business records in order to commit another crime or aid in the commission of another crime, and the misdemeanor becomes a felony.
According to the factual theory, The Trump Organization falsely reported payments to Michael Cohen in 2017 as ‘legal expenses’ when the money was actually a reimbursement for the $130,000 Cohen paid Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election to stop her from publicly announcing her alleged involvement with Trump 10 years earlier.
Law experts expect the indictment would elevate the alleged falsification of “legal expenditures” to a criminal level by charging Trump with lying about the payments to Cohen to hide a violation of federal election law. Cohen has already acknowledged paying off Daniels to help Trump’s campaign and seems to be a key witness against Trump. Another possibility is that the Manhattan District Attorney’s indictment accuses Trump of fabricating the organization’s “legal fees” to help in tax evasion.
The U.S. attorney has already rejected to charge Trump with violating federal election law, so any attempt by Bragg to link the federal misdemeanor to the state accusation of manipulating business records smacks of political retaliation.
Bragg’s anticipated use of Trump’s physical absence from New York — ironically while serving as commander-in-chief in Washington, D.C., Trying to avoid the five-year statute of limitations for a crime of fabricating company documents, will add to the stink of the case. And a public following Trump since he first declared his presidential bid is unlikely to be interested in the legal niceties of the statute of limitations. Rather, the typical American will see Trump’s delayed charge as a desperate attempt to fabricate a crime.
Trump quickly advanced this theory, opening his press release by calling the indictment the highest level of political persecution and election interference in history. A witch-hunt designed to destroy the Make America Great Again movement, the former president continued.
Trump reminded people to remember the previous leftist attacks: “Russia, Russia, Russia; the Mueller Hoax; Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine; Impeachment Hoax 1; Impeachment Hoax 2; the unlawful and unconstitutional Mar-a-Lago raid; and now this.
Trump is expected to be arraigned in a Manhattan court on Tuesday, and it is uncertain if the indictment will be disclosed before then. Yet, leaks persist, including, as previously said, reports that a grand jury has purportedly charged Trump with more than 30 felony offenses.
Unless He has discovered something far more significant than the information publicly revealed about the Daniels payment, the Manhattan prosecutor will have simply exacerbated problems by attempting to charge the former president with more than 30 felony crimes. Given the lack of fresh information, the most likely scenario is that the grand jury reached the 30-plus count threshold by charging Trump with separate charges for each monthly payment made to Cohen in 2017. The grand jury may add further charges for each month Trump allegedly paid the payment to “assist or conceal the conduct” of another crime.
Using this method, it’s easy to see how the grand jury might easily transform one hush-money payment into 30 offenses. While the left and Never Trump right may consider a lengthy indictment as fresh proof of Trump’s wrongdoing, if the indictment contains no new specifics, adding on to reach the estimated 33 charges against the former president makes Him appear more guilty — it makes Bragg look more like Beria.