A legal scholar slammed former President Donald Trump’s landmark indictment Thursday as “legally pathetic” and a “raw political trial.”
“This accusation, if it is reported to follow the theory we have spoken of, is political Crude political pursuitGeorge Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said in a special report.
Trump was indicted by a New York grand jury on Thursday and became the first former president to face criminal charges in US history.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office, Alvin Bragg, has been investigating Trump over the allegations Paying a sum of $130,000 to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in 2016. The specific charges in the case are currently under wraps.
On Thursday, a New York grand jury indicted former President Donald Trump. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images))
“An indictment may come for a crime none of us have ever heard of,” Turley said. “But for months, this boot theory, this notion that a misdemeanor can be committed under an expired New York law, which has a two-year statute of limitations, has been floated and revived by linking it to a federal crime, in this case, violating a federal election.”
“Now, there are a bunch of problems with that,” he continued. “First of all, it’s a federal crime that the Department of Justice chose not to prosecute. Bragg’s predecessor himself declined to prosecute it, but he’s trying to shove that federal crime into a state case. And if that’s the basis for the indictment, I think it’s pretty outrageous. I think it’s exciting.” Legally pathetic.”
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Federal prosecutors for the Southern District of New York She withdrew from accusing Trump related to Stormy Daniels’ payment in 2019 and the FEC also launched its investigation into the matter in 2021.
Turley said Bragg could not have chosen a better jurisdiction in the case against Trump.
“If he’s using the bootstrap theory, which is the only one publicly discussed, that’s unprecedented. And I would expect the New York judges to have the same reaction as many of us, including people on the left, that this doesn’t read properly.”
“This is not … under Bragg’s theory, he can take any unproven federal offense and . . Revive a long dead misdemeanor and turn it into a crime. This is really going to, you know, raise concerns for a number of judges. But once he reaches the appeal level, he’ll have a particularly hard time, in my view.”
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Trump issued a statement calling the indictment a case of “political persecution” and “election interference at the highest level in history.”
New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg has been investigating former President Donald Trump over hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. (Photo by Shane Bevel/NCAA via Getty Images/Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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“Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg, chosen and financed by George Soros, is a disgrace,” he said. “Instead of stopping the unprecedented crime wave gripping New York City, Joe Biden is doing Joe Biden’s dirty work, ignoring the murders, robberies and assaults he should be focusing on.”