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Bragg violated Trump’s 6th Amendment rights in refusing to disclose underlying crime: legal expert

The Truth News — Fri, 07 Apr 2023 07:37:27 +0000

Bragg violated Trump’s 6th Amendment rights in refusing to disclose underlying crime: legal expert

The Sixth Amendment guarantees defendants will be ‘informed of the nature and cause of the accusation’

Only feds can prosecute fed crimes any tying to fed crimes don’t hold water. also that would make any misdemeanor fraud non attachable to a federal crime hence no indictment

Does Bragg’s indictment violate Trump’s Sixth Amendment rights! Gregg Jarrett and panel

In Trump Case, The Former President’s Right to an Impartial Jury does not exist in New York City

The Sixth Amendment provides that “in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury.”

Gregg Jarrett, Charlie Hurt and Tammy Bruce sound off on ‘Hannity’ after former President Donald Trump was indicted in New York.

Former President Donald Trump’s Sixth Amendment rights may have been violated when New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg refused to disclose the underlying crime the defendant intended to conceal through his alleged falsification of business records, legal experts opined Wednesday.

The Sixth Amendment provides in part for the right of a criminal defendant to “be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor…”

When questioned by a reporter as to what the underlying crime the indictment fails to name is, Bragg replied in New York State, he does not have to.

“The indictment doesn’t specify it because the law does not so require,” he told the journalist.

BRAGG SHOULD BE DISBARRED: LEVIN

Former President Donald Trump, left, and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. (Shane Bevel/NCAA Photos via Getty Images | Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

On “Hannity,” Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett forcefully dismissed Bragg’s claim, saying he likely violated Trump’s right to know what he is specifically being accused of.

“He does [have to name it, via] the Sixth Amendment,” Jarrett said. “[The indictment] is therefore facially defective. It is deficient on its face and it would be susceptible to a motion-to-dismiss.”

Jarrett questioned whether Bragg slept through constitutional law in his studies at Harvard, envisioning the prosecutor working late one evening in New York City, mumbling that “I’ve got to get Trump — What crime? — What crime?” and that an office worker simply remarked, “Don’t say anything.”

Facsimile of the U.S. Constitution. (Fotosearch/Getty Images)

Jarrett recalled a warning from former Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, a Nuremberg Trial prosecutor, who said the “greatest danger to justice is an unscrupulous prosecutor who targets a person and then scours the law books to find an offense he can pin on that person.”

“That’s what Alvin Bragg has done,” he said.

Washington Times editor Charlie Hurt later added incredulously that Bragg’s charges amount to potentially more prison time — 136 years — than infamous Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff, who died at a Butner, North Carolina, prison in 2021, served.

“[T]his is such a circus — it’s so absurd. It’s so ridiculous. Alvin Bragg has so embarrassed himself, embarrassed to the legal profession that it really is going to, I think, set the tone for anything else any of these wacko, crazed, lunatic, left-wing, politicized Democrat DA’s want to do to try to destroy Trump,” Hurt said.

Former President Donald Trump. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Another Democratic prosecutor investigating Trump is Fulton County, Georgia’s Fani Willis. The case in the largest of a handful of counties the city of Atlanta comprises centers on allegations Trump violated the law when he asked Georgia Secretary of State Bradford Raffensperger to “find” a number of votes equal to what he needed to win the Peach State.

Trump is also under special counsel investigation after Attorney General Merrick Garland named now-former Kosovo War crimes prosecutor John “Jack” Smith to probe the discovery of classified documents at the former president’s Palm Beach home.

Trump also faces a civil suit in New York City from advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, who alleged the then-mogul sexually assaulted her at Bergdorf Goodman sometime in either 1995 or 1996.

In a January deposition transcript, Trump denied the incident, saying, “[Carroll] said I did something to her that never took place. There was no anything. I know nothing about this nut job.”

By Charles Creitz | Fox News

The Trump Indictment Is a Legal Embarrassment

By Jed Handelsman Shugerman

Mr. Shugerman is a law professor at Fordham and Boston University.

Tuesday was historic for the rule of law in America, but not in the way Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, would have imagined. The 34-count indictment — which more accurately could be described as 34 half-indictments — was a disaster. It was a setback for the rule of law and established a dangerous precedent for prosecutors.

This legal embarrassment reveals new layers of Trumpian damage to the legal foundations of the United States: Mr. Trump’s opponents react to his provocations and norms violations by escalating and accelerating the erosion of legal norms.

The case appears so weak on its legal and jurisdictional basis that a state judge might dismiss the case and mitigate that damage. More likely, the case is headed to federal court for a year, where it could lose on the grounds of federal pre-emption — only federal courts have jurisdiction over campaign finance and filing requirements. Even if it survives a challenge that could reach the Supreme Court, a trial would most likely not start until at least mid-2024, possibly even after the 2024 election.

Instead of the rule of law, it would be the rule of the circus.

Let’s start with the obvious problem that the payments at issue were made around six years ago. The basic facts have been public for five years. There are undoubtedly complicated political reasons for the delay, but regardless, Mr. Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus Vance Jr., had almost a year to bring this case after Mr. Trump left office, but did not do so, and Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Justice Department also declined. To address the perception of a reversal and questions of legitimacy, Mr. Bragg had a duty to explain more about the case and its legal basis in what’s known as a “speaking indictment,” which the team of the former special counsel Robert Mueller made famous in its filings.

Legal experts have been speculating about the core criminal allegation in this case, because the expected charge for “falsifying business records” becomes a felony only “when his intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.”

Astonishingly, the district attorney’s filings do not make clear the core crime that would turn a filing misdemeanor into a felony. Neither the 16-page indictment nor the accompanying statement of facts specifies, though the statement of facts does drop hints about campaign laws. In a news conference, Mr. Bragg answered that he did not specify because he was not required to by law. His answer was oblivious to how law requires more than doing the minimum to the letter — it demands fairness, giving notice and taking public legitimacy seriously.

As a result of all this, Mr. Trump and the public still know shockingly little about the case — not which particular statute he allegedly violated nor whether it is a state or federal campaign crime, a tax crime or something else. That’s why the indictment really contains only 34 half-counts. This open-ended indictment reflects a rule that jurors don’t have to agree on which underlying crime was committed, only that there had been an underlying crime, yet it is also standard when charging some cases to specify “crimes in the alternative.”

Giving only partial notice might be standard operating procedure in Manhattan, but that standard procedure — suddenly in the bright lights — seems like a systemic infringement of a New Yorker’s right to know “the nature of the charges and evidence against you,” a normalized Sixth Amendment violation. On the bright side, maybe the backlash will force Manhattan prosecutors to end this general practice. Still, it is hard not to ask whether Mr. Trump was actually treated worse than other similarly situated defendants, because after so many years of delay, surely a Manhattan prosecutor would have informed another defendant of at least the basic underlying crimes and their statutory basis.

The public could be forgiven for imagining that Mr. Bragg has not settled on his own theory. Unfortunately, he has given fodder to those who would portray this case as a political prosecution still in search of a legal theory.

Even based on the half-felony that we do know — the false business filing with “intent to defraud” — it remains unclear whether a court has ever allowed a false-filing conviction based on an entirely internal business record that no other party, like a bank, insurance company or customer, would have relied on. I am yet to see any legal experts who have argued for this statute as a basis for the case against Mr. Trump who has identified a New York case along these lines.

Nor have I found one in my own research. That hole in the case should have given prosecutors pause: What, in practice, is the meaning of “intent to defraud”? If a business record is internal, it is not obvious how a false filing could play a role in defrauding if other entities likely would not rely upon it and be deceived by it. Even if one can argue that the statute should apply to internal records, this is not the ideal time to test a seemingly novel (or even a very rare) application.

Because of pre-emption, it’s entirely possible that the State of New York cannot prosecute a state case based on a federal election filing violation. The underlying crime, as best as we can tell from Mr. Bragg’s news conference and a statement to the press, is a campaign finance violation — spending money for a campaign cover-up without reporting it. However, for a federal election, there is what one might call “double pre-emption” or “confirmed pre-emption”: Both Congress and the State of New York agree that cases about federal campaign filings are for federal courts only, not for states.

The Federal Election Campaign Act has a broad pre-emption clause: “The provisions of this act, and of rules prescribed under this act, supersede and pre-empt any provision of state law with respect to election to federal office.” New York State law confirms that state “filing requirements and the expenditure, contribution and receipt limits” under state law “shall not apply” if there is a federal requirement and a federal filing (in other words, they don’t apply to federal elections).

Federal pre-emption applies most strongly when the subject is the candidate’s own campaign conduct (as opposed to donors’, for example) and when it relates to core issues like filing rules (as in this case against Mr. Trump). Some defenders of the indictment cited some examples of federal courts allowing states to proceed based on state law, but those cases were not about basic campaign filing rules but about a fund-raiser funneling money to his own for-profit business, or they were about rules for donors’ contributions or political action committees, as opposed to the candidates’ conduct. These legal experts did not specify any case allowing a state to prosecute a candidate for his or her own behavior in a core area of campaign regulation like filing requirements.

Federal courts allow for states to regulate the “times, places and manner” of elections, voter registration, ballot theft and the like. They allow exceptions for pre-emption when the state laws are “more tangential to the regulation of federal elections.” This state filing law is not tangential to federal campaign filing law, nor is this allegation tangential to the field of federal campaign law. But federal courts have emphasized that the federal law applies most strongly to candidate behavior, especially on filing questions. The application of this state filing law overlaps much more closely with the federal law’s field of campaign finance and filing.

There is good reason for pre-emption for federal campaign finance: the danger of local prosecutors bending state law against federal candidates of the opposing party. Congress and New York have traditionally agreed that federal campaign finance and filing law are for federal courts.

Pre-emption, abstention and federal jurisdiction are complicated. Even if there is a valid argument that somehow the state statute and this case are only tangential to federal election law or that federal courts should abstain from taking it, Mr. Trump’s lawyers still can go back to the game book from their tangle with the previous Manhattan district attorney, Trump v. Vance, and the subpoena for tax returns. Mr. Trump’s lawyers filed for an injunction in federal trial court, took the appeals up to the Supreme Court and delayed the subpoena for about a year. This case is headed up the same road. The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of federal pre-emption in cases with less clear pre-emption language, and Mr. Trump has a substantial chance of winning, given the clarity of the federal pre-emption language and confirmation of pre-emption in New York State law.

Even if Mr. Bragg prevails, would a trial eight or more years after the underlying events, either at the height of the 2024 election or soon after, really be a win for the rule of law?

Perhaps Tuesday was really an indictment of the Department of Justice under William Barr and Merrick Garland. If anyone should have brought this case, it was one of them. And if the Garland Justice Department should bring a case, there are stronger, more recent and much more serious charges to bring. source

Jed Handelsman Shugerman (@jedshug) is a law professor at Fordham and Boston University.

Why was Trump indicted? What to expect in New York hush money case

The Truth News — Sun, 02 Apr 2023 19:33:54 +0000

Why was Trump indicted? What to expect in New York hush money case

A grand jury in New York announced Thursday an indictment against Donald Trump, the first criminal case ever brought against a former U.S. president.

The indictment is an extraordinary development after years of investigations into Trump’s business, political and personal dealings. Trump is currently ramping up to regain the White House in 2024 while simultaneously battling other legal problems.

Here is a look at why he was indicted in New York and what’s going to happen next in that legal process.

Why was Trump indicted?

Trump’s indictment in New York has to do with a so-called “hush money” payment made during the height of his 2016 presidential campaign.

While making a hush-money payment isn’t itself an illegal act, the way Trump funneled the money might have made it one.

A $130,000 payment was made to porn star Stormy Daniels to keep her from going public during Trump’s presidential campaign about a sexual encounter she claims she had with the Republican years ago.

The money was paid out of the personal funds of Trump’s now-estranged lawyer, Michael Cohen, who then said he was reimbursed by the Trump Organization and also paid extra bonuses for a total that eventually rose to $420,000.

Manhattan prosecutors had been examining whether any state laws were broken in connection with the payment or the way Trump’s company compensated Cohen for his work to keep the allegations quiet.

The grand jury heard evidence and from a number of witnesses in secret since January.

FILE – U.S. President Donald Trump holds a joint news conference with Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri in the Rose Garden at the White House July 25, 2017, in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

This week, the hearings ended and the grand jury determined enough evidence existed to indict Trump – which, in New York, is the equivalent to issuing a formal felony charge.

When a person is indicted, they are given formal notice that it’s believed that they committed a crime, and the indictment contains the basic information that informs the person of the charges against them, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

What is Trump charged with?

The specific charges were not immediately made public following the announcement to indict the former president on Thursday.

Will Trump be arrested?

Trump previously claimed in a social media post that his arrest was imminent, though that was before the grand jury investigation concluded.

Now that the indictment is official, Trump, 76, would only be arrested if he refuses to surrender.

Trump’s lawyers have previously said he would follow normal procedure, according to the Associated Press, meaning he will likely agree to turn himself in at a New York Police Department precinct or directly to the district attorney’s office.

Trump was asked to surrender on Friday, but his lawyers said the Secret Service needed additional time as they made security preparations, two people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. The people spoke on condition of anonymity because they couldn’t publicly discuss security details.

District Attorney Alvin Bragg left his office Thursday evening without commenting.

FILE – U.S. President Donald Trump attends the announcement of the introduction of the Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy (RAISE) Act in the Roosevelt Room at the White House on August 2, 2017, in Washington, DC. (Zach Gibson – Pool/Getty Images)

Will Trump take a mugshot?

On Sunday, Cohen told us that he expects Trump will “absolutely” be fingerprinted and photographed if he’s arrested.

Criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor Arthur Aidala agreed during a conversation with FOX 5 NY.

“He won’t do a ‘perp walk’ where he’s going to be in handcuffs, but he’s got to go into the building, he’s got to go somewhere in the D.A.’s office, he’s got to be fingerprinted, there’ll be a mugshot of him, he’s got to stand in front of a Supreme Court judge, plead ‘not guilty’ to an indictment, and then walk out,” Aidala predicted. source

Related to Trump’s Indictment :

Can Donald Trump still run for president despite indictment?

Why was Trump indicted? What to expect in New York hush money case

Who is Alvin Bragg? What to know about the Manhattan district attorney

We as a Nation Must Learn about Political Oppression and Protect Trump! Justice is Alvin Bragg being Disbarred

Can Donald Trump still run for president despite indictment?

The Truth News — Sun, 02 Apr 2023 17:27:57 +0000

Can Donald Trump still run for president despite indictment?

A Manhattan grand jury has voted to indict Donald Trump on charges involving payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign to silence claims of an extramarital sexual encounter, his lawyers said Thursday, producing the first criminal case against a former U.S. president and a jolt to Trump’s bid to retake the White House.

Trump, who has denied any wrongdoing and has repeatedly attacked the investigation, called the indictment “political persecution” and predicted it would damage Democrats in 2024.

The indictment is an extraordinary development after years of investigations into his business, political and personal dealings. It is likely to galvanize critics who say Trump lied and cheated his way to the top and embolden supporters who feel the Republican is being unfairly targeted by a Democratic prosecutor.

In a statement, his lawyers, Susan Necheles and Joseph Tacopina, said: “He did not commit any crime. We will vigorously fight this political prosecution in court.”

Yes, Trump can still run for president

Nothing in the U.S. Constitution prohibits candidates with criminal records from holding office.

The only qualifications needed to run is to be at least 35 years old and be a natural born citizen who has lived in the country for at least 14 years.

However, according to Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, a person who has engaged in an insurrection or rebellion against the United States, cannot hold office unless overcome with a two-thirds vote from Congress.

Minutes after the indictment was announced Thursday, Trump released a lengthy statement calling it the next step in a campaign from the left “to destroy the Make America Great Again movement.”

“The Democrats have lied, cheated and stolen in their obsession with trying to ‘Get Trump,’ but now they’ve done the unthinkable – indicting a completely innocent person in an act of blatant Election Interference,” Trump’s statement said.

Trump accused Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg of “doing Joe Biden’s dirty work, ignoring the murders and burglaries and assaults he should be focused on.”

Alina Habba, an attorney for Trump, said the former president is a victim “of a corrupt and distorted version of the American justice system and history. He will be vindicated.”

An indictment wouldn’t stop Trump from continuing his campaign. There is no prohibition against running while facing criminal charges — or even following conviction. Indeed, convicted felons have run for president before, including from behind bars.

How will this impact his chances of winning in 2024?

Trump faces other potential legal perils as he seeks to reassert control of the Republican Party and stave off a slew of one-time allies who are seeking or are likely to oppose him for the presidential nomination.

The district attorney in Atlanta has for two years been investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to meddle in Georgia’s 2020 vote count. And a U.S. Justice Department special counsel is investigating Trump’s storage of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida and his efforts to reverse his election loss.

Politically, Trump allies believe the case actually will benefit the former president in the short term by energizing his base in a competitive Republican primary, and would provide another boost later on if it ultimately fails to yield a conviction.

“The prosecutor in New York has done more to help Donald Trump get elected,” says Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., echoing other GOP officials, who have also argued the probe will likely help Trump in the short term, even if it could prove damaging in a general election.

“It boggles the mind to think that we have an ex-president on the eve of being indicted still the frontrunner for the Republican Party in 2024,” said presidential historian Douglas Brinkley weeks before Trump was indicted. “You would have thought (potentially) being arrested would have been a disqualifying factor in presidential politics. But Trump constantly surprises people by his devious and inappropriate behavior that he transcends by turning it into being a victim of a witch hunt.” source

Can Trump still run for president if indicted? Convicted? How indictment could affect 2024

Donald Trump has become the first former president to face criminal charges in U.S. history, indicted in New York for the role he played in paying hush money to a porn star.

The historic indictment raises many questions as the country barrels toward the 2024 presidential election, in which Trump is the leading candidate for the Republican nomination.

Whether the indictment will help or hinder Trump politically is yet to be seen, though early fundraising numbers suggest the charges have mobilized his base. But experts say legally, the indictment changes little for how the former president can proceed in his bid for the nation’s highest office.

Can Trump still run for president if indicted? Convicted?

“Absolutely,” said Jessica Levinson, founding director of Loyola Law School’s Public Service Institute.

The Constitution lays out the exclusive qualifications to run for the presidency, she said.

There are three requirements:

Natural-born citizen.
At least 35 years old.
Resident of the U.S. for at least 14 years.

“That could be because the founders just didn’t envision that we would have people who are facing indictment and potentially conviction running for the highest office in the land,” she said.

In fact, the former president has said he does not plan to drop out of the 2024 race despite his legal problems.

“I won’t even think about leaving,” Trump told reporters before a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in March.

“Probably, it’ll enhance my numbers.”

What is an arraignment?:What the legal proceeding means following Trump’s indictment

Why was Trump indicted?

The charges against Trump have not been made public. But the New York grand jury was investigating the former president for a $130,000 payment he made just before the 2016 election to silence adult film star Stormy Daniels about an earlier affair.

Trump has denied the affair and any wrongdoing, calling the investigation a politically motivated “witch hunt” and urging his supporters to protest his treatment. Trump lawyer Joseph Tacopina called the indictment a “political prosecution” and said Trump’s team would fight it in court.

How does a grand jury work?

Grand juries decide whether a prosecutor’s evidence provides probable cause to issue an indictment, according to Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute.

Usually made up of 16 to 23 people, grand juries meet in private as an investigative body independent of a prosecuting attorney or judge. A district attorney shows the grand jury evidence and asks jurors to consider certain charges, David Weinstein, a former federal and state prosecutor, told USA TODAY.

Then the jury votes in secret on whether enough evidence exists to charge someone with a crime. If the majority of the jury believes a person committed a crime, it returns with an indictment. If it does not, the person is not required to plead to a criminal charge and there is no trial.

To be a grand juror in New York, where Trump was indicted, a person must be a U.S. citizen, at least 18 years old, a resident of the county to which they’re summoned to serve and able to understand and communicate in English. A person can’t have a felony conviction.

What is a grand jury?:What to know about the jury that voted to indict Trump.

What law is Trump accused of breaking?

The exact charges Trump faces are still unknown. But the grand jury’s investigation gives some insight into the law or laws the former president may have broken.

Public information from witnesses who have been debriefed by prosecutors and provided testimony to the grand jury indicate that the investigation’s main focus has not strayed far from the payment Trump made to Daniels ahead of his 2016 campaign.

The hush money payment could be used to build a case for falsifying business records and violating campaign finance law.

“The crime here appears to be the falsification of business records to conceal the hush money payments by falsely describing them as legal fees,” said Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney and now law professor at the University of Michigan. “The crime becomes a felony if it covers up another crime.”

Is hush money legal?

A hush money payment itself is not illegal, according to Levinson and McQuade.

“In this case, it appears that Stormy Daniels sold the rights to her story about an alleged affair with Trump to the National Enquirer, giving it exclusive rights to print it,” McQuade said. “The National Enquirer chose to never print the story. As long as Daniels got paid, there is no crime in that contractual arrangement.”

How will Trump’s indictment affect the 2024 presidential race?

Legally, not much. But politically, it could be a different story.