Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg seriously embarrassed himself with the indictment that was unsealed on Tuesday.
As I noted previously, it confirms the case is the turkey we thought and is a “charge-stacking” effort. It has more holes than Swiss cheese, and it gives the Trump attorneys ample room to run a truck through the case and get it tossed. Expect a motion coming to dismiss the matter shortly, as they already indicated.
Bragg held a brief presser to try to justify himself. What he said was pretty laughable.
"We can not, and will not normalize serious criminal conduct."
– District Attorney Alvin Bragg
Same guy who refuses to prosecute violent crime on the streets of New York City. pic.twitter.com/56fKk6utNJ
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) April 4, 2023
“We can not, and will not normalize serious criminal conduct,” Bragg simpered.
Is he joking? This is the same guy who downgrades felonies to misdemeanors—if he even charges the person at all. Except of course for former president Donald Trump. Talk about biased action. He’s the only guy who gets upgraded to a felony, and naturally, it has nothing at all to do with the fact that he’s a declared candidate for for president in 2024.
I broke down some of the major issues with the indictment, and I’ll be looking at the statement of facts a little more. But the funny thing here is that while Bragg is puffing up about normalizing criminal conduct and his 34 charges, someone from his office or in this process leaked information on this indictment— which was why we were able to report on it before Tuesday, and I was able to break it down on Monday.
The problem is that the indictment is supposed to be secret before it is unsealed. And it matched what was leaked. It shouldn’t have leaked, and that’s a problem for Bragg. It’s not illegal or improper for us to report on it. It is illegal for them to leak it.
New York Criminal Procedure Law § 190.25:
4. (a) Grand jury proceedings are secret, and no grand juror, or other person… may, except in the lawful discharge of his duties or upon written order of the court, disclose the nature or substance of any grand jury testimony, evidence, or any decision, result or other matter attending a grand jury proceeding.
So what does that mean, if someone leaks information from the indictment?
§ 215.70 Unlawful grand jury disclosure
A person is guilty of unlawful grand jury disclosure when, being a grand juror, a public prosecutor, a grand jury stenographer, a grand jury interpreter, a police officer or a peace officer guarding a witness in a grand jury proceeding, or a clerk, attendant, warden or other public servant having official duties in or about a grand jury room or proceeding, or a public officer or public employee, he intentionally discloses to another the nature or substance of any grand jury testimony, or any decision, result or other matter attending a grand jury proceeding which is required by law to be kept secret, except in the proper discharge of his official duties or upon written order of the court.
Unlawful grand jury disclosure is a class E felony.
Oh. Do you mean that they might have just committed a Class E felony, like those of which they’ve accused Trump? You got it.
Trump’s attorneys could file a complaint and demand an investigation, as they should.
But in addition to being illegal and showing bias in the matter, probably to smear Trump—as I said before/a>, to make him look bad to the public and taint the potential jury pool, there’s also something else here. We all know that there’s a big question about whether or not Trump can get a fair trial before a Manhattan jury, when Manhattan has such a liberal/anti-Trump orientation. There have been reports that the Trump attorneys were thinking about moving for a change of venue to get the case out of Manhattan to Staten Island (the most conservative of the five boroughs of New York) or upstate. A change of venue might help Trump’s chances of getting a fair trial. But you have to show the bias and why you wouldn’t get a fair trial. Now, with the leak, the DA’s office just gave them a big honking example of the bias. So, Bragg’s office or whoever was behind the leak just helped those chances, if the attorneys point to the leak.
Talk about a clown car of a prosecution—this is it.
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