Bragg’s Weak Cheese

As the hush money trial begins today, I’m re-upping a truncated version of this post from a few weeks back….

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Nobody wants Trump in jail more than I do, but I think pundits are letting their excitement get the better of them. This case is weak.

Most importantly, this is not an “election interference” case. Don’t let any second-rate TV pundit or member of the Twitterati elite tell you otherwise.

There is no law stating that voters are entitled to know every bad thing a candidate has ever done before casting a vote. None. Attempting to keep negative information about your candidate from coming out before an election is not a crime. If it was, every candidate and campaign manager in US history would be serving time at Riker’s Island.

This is a case about falsifying business records. Namely that Trump and his cohorts shuffled around some accounting to conceal Stormy’s payment. Falsifying business records is typically a misdemeanor in New York state, and only rises off the level of a felony if it’s in effort to cover up another crime. As there is no crime here to cover up (see above), this case is ludicrous. Bragg’s entire case hinges on a misdemeanor accounting process crime. It’s radically overcharged. It’s hard for a jury to follow. In short, it’s weak cheese.

Anything other than a conviction here is win for Trump - including a hung jury. All Trump needs is (1) juror. Getting (12) to convict him is a Hail Mary. This has always been the weakest of the (4) big Trump cases and we’ll most likely head into the election with it as the only finished case. The inevitable hung jury or acquittal will feed Trump (and the Fox News Cinematic Universe’s) “political persecution” narrative and cause many voters (especially Independents) to mentally dismiss the other cases as well.

This really is our worst case scenario.