The Case Against Bragg

Bragg -- NYPost

There are, we sometimes forget in our highly politicized judicial environment, two sides to every case. The Grand Jury sitting on the case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Bragg against former President Donald Trump brought in an indictment against Trump, who now will be forced to travel to a court hearing and processing in New York City, during which he will be arraigned before a judge, fingerprinted and mugshotted.

Already on the internet there are photo-shopped pictures of Trump showing the former President in cuffs heartily objecting to the indignity. Bets already have been laid on the question: How long will it take before the mugshot appears in the New York Times, along with a lurid headline and a story that does not give much ink to important questions ventilated in what some people on the left have been pleased to call the “conservative” media. There are very few signs in Connecticut that the conservative media has had its heavy hand on the media wheel.

Some Connecticut editorial writers and political commentators have made the denunciation of Trump a precondition of holding office for Republicans in the state. Others have wisely been more cautious.  Dan Haar of the Hearst Media group believes that leading Republicans in the state should denounce Trump, but he adds, “For what it’s worth, I worry that this prosecution isn’t worth the risk it will backfire, isn’t worth breaking new legal ground and isn’t worth the divisiveness it’s causing.”

The Bragg prosecution is what the media calls “an unfolding story.” It is true that Trump has been indicted – but by a Grand Jury proceeding that closely resembles a Star Chamber Court. There are no defense attorneys present in New York Grand Jury proceedings, and no judges to interfere with a prosecutorial presentation of carefully edited “evidence.” At this point, long after Trump himself announced he would be indicted, we do not know what charges have been affirmed by the Star Chamber Grand Jury. Bragg may indeed pull a new prosecutorial rabbit out of his head. But many respected judicial court watchers have said, given a prospective analysis of the case, that Bragg is initiating novel charges that may boomerang on Democrats.

The Grand Jury charges are to be presented publically at the Trump arraignment, a “throw Republicans under the bus” affair in New York City, where the ex-President has been reviled in the media ever since he first appeared on a down escalator to announce he would be available as a presidential candidate.

The “get Trump” drumming that began even before Trump was sworn in as President mounted to two crescendos during his time in office, both resulting in impeachment proceedings in the Democrat controlled U.S. Congress, neither of which were successful in removing Trump from office following a trial in the Senate. The only punishment for impeachment – i.e. indictment in the House -- is removal from office after an affirmative vote on the charges in the Senate. In that respect, both impeachments may be regarded as politically inspired by, among others, former Speaker of the U.S. House Nancy Pelosi.

Following the Grand Jury’s indictment of Trump, Pelosi tweeted, “No one is above the law, and everyone has the right to a trial to prove innocence. Hopefully, the former President will peacefully respect the system, which grants him that right.”

Aye, tweeters noted, but forcing a former President – who, all will agree, is not below the law – to prove his innocence at trial is every bit as novel as Bragg’s supposed charges. Generally, in American jurisprudence, the accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

These disturbing tweeters very likely will not be chosen to sit on jury in New York – not MAGA country, many will agree.

Before Pelosi surrendered her Speaker’s gavel to Republican Kevin McCarthy, it was widely supposed she was expert in counting votes. And some non-MAGA political commentators supposed at the time, before impeachment proceedings were initiated in the House, that Pelosi also was adept at counting votes in the Senate as well. Knowing that Pelosi knew she did not have sufficient votes in the Senate to remove Trump from office, some commentators concluded that Pelosi had opened proceedings for impeachment in the House for -- by no means a stretch of the imagination -- political reasons.

Some people who do not think American politics should descend to a bitter Manichean political rivalry likewise reason that the Bragg prosecution is largely political. And these people have not yet been proven guilty of reportorial malfeasance, though their opinions are not regularly ventilated in northeast newspapers behind-the-pay-wall commentaries now insisting that any Connecticut Republican office holder who does not volubly and often announce opposition to Trump is – what should we call it? – an enemy of the people who should be hounded out of office.