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‘If you come at the king, you best not miss’: Fmr. prosecutors discuss the many problems with Trump case

April 15, 2023 | | Print Article

“If you come at the king, you best not miss.”

It’s a quote from HBO’s hit, “The Wire,” but former Manhattan prosecutor and current criminal defense lawyer Mark Bederow believes it should also apply to District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against former President Donald Trump.

“If you bring an unprecedented case like this against a former president and current presidential candidate, it’s essential for the credibility of the criminal justice system to present a clear and cogent explanation of your theory as opposed to saying ‘I don’t have to tell you,'” Bederow told Fox News Digital (FND).

Trump pleaded “not guilty” to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records earlier this month — flimsy charges brought against him by the politically motivated, George Soros-backed Manhattan D.A.

 

As BizPac Review reported, Trump attorney Alina Habba called the indictment a “disappointment.”

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“Without getting into privileged information, I can tell you that we had an idea of what was going to happen,” Habba told Fox News host Jesse Watters. “We counted how it would get to 34, of course, because of the illegal leaks. It was exactly what we thought. I can’t get into it but can I tell you there was no surprises, and it was actually disappointing as a professional, as an attorney… I was waiting for a little something. Give us a challenge.”

It appears that many former prosecutors agree with her assessment.

Daniel Bibb is a former assistant district attorney and spent more than 20 years trying Manhattan murder cases.

“If it wasn’t Donald Trump, no prosecutor in the world would have touched this,” he told FND. “If you and I did what Trump did, we never would have been charged.”

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To summarize the case against the current GOP primary frontrunner, Trump is accused of making a $130,000 “hush-money” payment to porn star Stormy Daniels. He reportedly tasked his now-disgraced former attorney and failed “fixer” to make the arrangements for what was essentially a non-disclosure agreement during his 2016 presidential campaign.

Explains Fox News Digital:

Cohen, then an employee of the Trump Organization, used a shell corporation to pay off Daniels one month before the election.

After Trump’s victory, Cohen was reimbursed $420,000 disguised as payments for legal services rendered pursuant to a phony retainer agreement. The figure included the tax he’d have to pay on the income and a $60,000 bonus.

Bragg has argued that this payment was an illegal campaign contribution because it wasn’t disclosed and exceeded the amount allowed under federal law.

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The first problem, of course, is Cohen’s credibility — something upon which much of Bragg’s case is built.

He has been disbarred. He was convicted of federal charges in 2018 and, shortly thereafter, pleaded guilty to lying to Congress. He’s been to prison. And he’s written a bitter “tell-all” book in which he described Trump as “a cheat, a mobster, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a con man.”

“If Michael Cohen told you today was Wednesday would you believe that unless you looked at your own calendar?” Bederow asked Fox News Digital.

Then there’s the potential testimony from Daniels, who has in the past made contradictory statements to the press she seems to adore.

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And what of the charges themselves?

Falsifying business records is typically a misdemeanor, and to twist it into a felony, Bragg must prove that Trump intended to commit or conceal a second crime. What that second crime is remains a mystery. Bragg didn’t disclose that detail, because, he claimed, he isn’t legally required to do so.

The implication is that Trump violated state and federal campaign finance and tax laws. Bragg also suggested that “Trump may have also violated a New York election law that makes it illegal to conspire to promote a candidate by unlawful means, and that he lied to state tax authorities when he mischaracterized the reimbursements to Cohen as income,” FND reports.

Richard Hasen, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles law school and an expert in election law, questioned the ability to bring the case in state court if a federal election law is involved.

“The bottom line is that it’s murky,” he said. “And the district attorney did not offer a detailed legal analysis as to how they can do this.”

According to Bederow, had Bragg hit Trump with 34 misdemeanors, he would have had little trouble convicting him.

“It appears overwhelming that the way this was structured in terms of payments to Cohen as legal fees is false,” he said.

Misdemeanor charges, however, weren’t an option for Bragg, Bederow explained, because the “two-year statute of limitations has 100%, no doubt, expired.”

But despite the many mental and legal hurdles Bragg must overcome to make his case, Bederow warns there’s an ace tucked snugly in the D.A.’s pocket.

“This is Manhattan, so the DA has an overwhelming home-court advantage,” he noted. “If you put Donald Trump on trial for the Kennedy assassination, a Manhattan jury would probably find he’s the guy in the grassy knoll.”

Melissa Fine
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