Politically motivated and legally pathetic

The more we learn about this, the worse it looks...

The two most common themes regarding the possible Trump indictment is that it is politically motivated and that it is lacking actual legal merit. So far, I have not seen much of anyone in the legitimate legal community embracing this possible indictment. I have seen some political pundits suggest that the reasoning "must" be good, but no real deep explanation as to why they feel this way. Just an assumption that Trump must be guilty if Bragg is willing to indict.

This (of course) is the difference between real legal experts and politicized journalist who would never be on Trump's side regardless.

As the layers of the onion continue to be peeled off, the suggestion now is that Bragg is going attempt to suggest that the crime being covered up by the so called "falsified bookkeeping" is the curious suggestion that the NDA was a violation of the Federal Campaign laws. This, of course, takes us back to the rejected argument that Trump was legally required to report the NDA with Stormy Daniels as a campaign expense.

The law is a little murky to the details, but the basic concept is that you can only use campaign funds on things that are exclusive to helping your campaign. If whatever it is you are funding also helps you personally or professionally, then it cannot be simply paid for by your campaign contributions. There is special paperwork that can be filled out for specific dual benefit situations that has to be reviewed by the Federal Elections Commission to see if you can use campaign funds to pay a portion, but there is nothing to suggest these dual purpose expense "have" to be filed that way.

It would actually have been a stronger argument for a crime if Trump has used campaign finance laws to pay off an ex-porn star for her silence and just wrote it off as a legal expense within his campaign. In fact the Clinton campaign was fined for declaring opposition research (Steele dossier) as a "legal expense". However, this particular NDA was quite obviously not done "only" to help his campaign. By putting himself in the national spotlight as a political candidate the chances of Stormy Daniels going to the press (or being sought out by the press) was increased exponentially. Stormy telling her story would have harmed his marriage, his television career, as well as his "Trump" brand. There was plenty of "personal" reasons for Trump to garner this NDA.

Either way, there was no Federal prosecution of this alleged wrong doing and the Chair of the Federal Elections Committee offered the legal opinion that Trump handled the financing of the NDA correctly by not using donated campaign funds. In other words, the Federal Government did not see this as a crime. The head of the Federal Elections did not see this as a crime. Trump was never charged with a crime, much less convicted of any crime.

By all standards of the law, Trump handled it 100% legally.

So how is it that Bragg believes he can say that the bookkeeping in question was done to "hide" a crime that was never a crime? Well quite obviously we do not know how that is going to work or whether whatever he does pull out of the hat actually holds up under legal scrutiny. I would suspect that much of this would be handled pre-trial with all sorts of motions, etc. If the judge decides that Bragg cannot use an uncharged crime (that all pertinent legal experts agree was not a crime) as the pretense of what the bookkeeping violation was used to cover up, then the case obviously goes away. Not just the campaign finance portion, but the bookkeeping crime as well.

Moreover, this would be an appealable argument even if Bragg followed through, a Judge allowed it, and a jury convicts. Any appeals court could throw it out as well. The further you get away from the corruption of New York and SDNY prosecutors, the harder it will be for this legal argument to fly. It absolutely would be crushed before any Federal court if there was a means to appeal there.

So some are suggesting that Bragg will say Trump violated "New York" campaign laws, but there is a problem with that:

Federal Election Laws

With respect to the financing of federal elections, federal law specifically supersedes state law in the following areas:

1. The organization and registration of political committees supporting federal candidates;

2. The disclosure of receipts and expenditures in connection with federal elections by federal candidates and political committees; and

3. The limits on contributions and expenditures that apply to federal candidates and political committees. 11 CFR 108.7(b).

So it really doesn't matter if Bragg suggests a New York law was broken if the Federal law was not. The Presidency is a Federal Election and Federal Election law supercedes any state law in regards to this specific matter (reporting of receipts and expenditures). So regardless of which direction Bragg goes with this, he is handcuffed by the reality that Trump is not guilty of a Campaign Finance crime because of the NDA.

I don't see a legitimate case here and neither does any of the legal experts I follow. Bragg probably knows this as well but is politically motivated to bring the case. There is no other possible explanation.