Veteran Reporter Reveals Why Alvin Bragg’s Case Is Nothing But ‘Misdirection’ And No Danger To Trump

Add senior reporter Byron York to the chorus of critics who say Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has proved nothing in his trial against former President Donald Trump. In fact, York writes, the only success Bragg can take credit for is “misdirection” about the 34 felony charges.

York, a senior correspondent with the conservative Washington Examiner, stated on X that the conclusion of witnesses for the prosecution has only shown how “it’s hard not to see the case as a giant exercise in misdirection.”

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“Prosecutors started by defining the case as a ‘criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 election,’ which is not what Trump is charged with. Prosecutors have spent days proving things that aren’t in dispute — and aren’t a crime — namely that Trump paid Stormy Daniels for a nondisclosure agreement,” he wrote. “They have offered documents to support that fact. But the documents have created an illusion of corroboration. They do not prove that Trump, with intent to defraud, made or caused a false business record to be created — the ‘legal expenses’ entries in the Trump Organization ledger. That’s what Trump is accused of doing.”

Days before former Trump attorney Michael Cohen testified that he arranged the payment to Daniels, prosecutors produced documents that included Trump’s signature on checks, some of which later went to the adult film star. However, no evidence has shown that Trump intended the payment as anything other than to protect his family from a salacious news story, a strategy his former press secretary concurred with. Others have noted that, even if Trump had helped to create a false business record, the statute of limitations expired before Bragg brought charges. In a run-around, Bragg claimed Trump used the records to commit a second crime which he has not yet identified.

Cohen’s “word is the only evidence prosecutors have offered that Trump knew the checks to Cohen were logged as ‘legal expenses.’ (Which, at least in part, they were.),” York added. “And of course, even if prosecutors can prove that, they also have to prove that Trump, with intention to defraud, falsified the records with intent to commit another crime. So far, nobody knows what the other crime is.”

The reporter pointed out that even liberal legal analysts on MSNBC were confused about what crimes Bragg had charged Trump with at this point. “Were prosecutors going to use New York state law against Trump? Federal law? Was the jury supposed to figure it out by themselves? It was all part of the misdirection of this case. If you try to ignore the distractions and keep your eye on the actual charges against Trump, you won’t find much.”

On the Trump trial: Now that the prosecution has finished with its witnesses, it's hard not to see the case as a giant exercise in misdirection. Prosecutors started by defining the case as a 'criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 election,' which is not what Trump is charged with.…

— Byron York (@ByronYork) May 14, 2024

Other analysts at MSNBC and CNN have voiced similar doubts about Bragg’s reliance on “circumstantial evidence” that does not prove a crime. The Democratic prosecutor’s case is likely the only one of four criminal trials against Trump likely to conclude before Election Day and has also been widely regarded as the weakest.

“I’m a little concerned about the fact that there’s so much emphasis on the payment being made and how the payment came about being made, and I think everyone has to always keep front of mind that the prosecutors have to prove the way they recorded these payments and hid them in the business records is really the key to a conviction in this case,” former Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill said on MSNBC earlier this week. “And that while Trump signed all those checks, it’s a lot of circumstantial evidence. And sometimes, as Dan will tell you, a mountain full of circumstantial evidence is much better than one unreliable witness. So I do think the circumstantial evidence is significant here, but the direct evidence that Trump was fully aware that these payments were being hidden in a way that was fraudulent is a little light at this point.”