Why All The Other ‘Get Trump’ Cases Are Just As Weak As The Manhattan DA’s
Although the grand jury indictment against former president and 2024 contender Donald Trump hasn’t been unsealed yet, the corporate press is redirecting the public’s focus to the other pending investigations. This redirection is evidence that the charges by the Manhattan district attorney will be perceived as weak and politically motivated. However, the Fulton County, Georgia investigation, and Special Counsel Jack Smith’s probes of Trump are equally weak.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will unseal the indictment returned last week by a grand jury against Trump today. Selective leaks suggest the former president will be charged with over 30 criminal counts of business fraud related to hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels.
Since news of the indictment first broke last week, legal pundits have called out Bragg, who ran for prosecutor on a “tough on Trump” platform, for pushing the questionable criminal case against the former president.
While it seems likely Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis, a Democrat, will soon indict Trump on state law grounds, that move will only make the targeting of Trump look more political. Moreover, the media rounds by forewoman Emily Kohrs following the release of portions of the special purpose grand jury report confirm the false premise that Trump had asked the Georgia secretary of state to find him 11,780 votes.
Special Counsel Jack Smith is handling the other two investigations into the former president – one concerning Trump’s conduct related to Jan. 6, 2021, and the second probe focusing on the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago.
Smith will be hard-pressed to concoct a crime Trump committed related to Jan. 6, given his constitutionally protected speech, and his legal theories, even if flawed. It is insufficient to establish criminal liability. The investigation into Trump’s retention of presidential documents faces problems because the government’s access to its own records seeks to protect its own records. The possession of a copy of a government record is not enough to create criminal liability, and the special counsel would need to establish that Trump had reason to believe that the information illegally possessed would harm the United States or help an adversary.
The only accusation that remains is that of obstruction of justice, which the legacy press thinks it has evidence against Trump. However, the Biden case illustrates how documents marked classified could be overlooked in a review of documents. It will be impossible to know whether evidence exists that Trump obstructed justice until Smith’s investigation concludes. If that is all the special counsel’s office has against Trump, it will be just as weak as the other cases.
The other investigations into the former president are no more serious than the Manhattan D.A’s targeting of Trump. However, the focus of attention has shifted away from Bragg’s case, which tells us that the other investigations are weak. The American public has witnessed clear witch hunts against the former president and will view those criminal cases as political persecution.
