Bragg’s Courtroom Win Could Mean New York Trouble for Trump

Judge Alvin Hellerstein’s ruling that the hush money criminal case against President Trump belongs in state court means that District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case has weathered its first courtroom test. The decision to decline Mr. Trump’s request to move the trial to federal court indicates that the district attorney’s indictment, toward which even liberals have evinced skepticism, will be heard on Mr. Bragg’s own turf. It also telegraphs judicial skepticism toward the lingering privileges of Mr. Trump’s former office.While Judge Hellerstein’s rebuff to the former president did not reach the merits of the prosecutor’s case, it suggests that Mr. Bragg has mounted a plausible argument for a state crime. In rejecting Mr. Trump’s accusation of bias, Judge Hellerstein undercuts what has thus far been Mr. Trump’s primary defense in the court of public opinion. District Attorney Fani Willis is likely watching. Mr. Bragg accuses Mr. Trump of 34 counts of falsifying business records. These include false invoices, ledgers, and checks, all in the service of a yet unmentioned second crime. Judge Hellerstein, who held an evidentiary hearing as part of his presiding over the case, notes that “nine of the checks were signed by Donald Trump personally.”Judge Hellerstein, in a boost to Mr. Bragg, observed that the “evidence strongly supporting their allegations that the money paid to [Trump attorney Michael] Cohen was reimbursement for a hush money payment.” He adds that the record “overwhelmingly suggests that the matter was a purely a personal item of the President,” rather than an incident of office. “Hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a President’s official acts,” Judge Hellerstein ruled, drawing a clean line between the protections and privileges owed the office and Mr. Bragg’s jurisdiction over extracurricular activity transacted in New York. He cites President Clinton’s failure, in the Paula Jones matter, to gain immunity for a “private, embarrassing act done before he became President.”In language that could be cited by Special Counsel Jack Smith in a possible prosecution related to the events of January 6, 2021, Judge Hellerstein writes, “Not every act of or on behalf of a federal officer is an act under color of office.” He rejected Mr. Trump’s contention that his retention of Cohen was “rooted in constitutional concerns” as conclusively. Should she indict the former president, Ms. Willis is likely to read with interest Judge Hellerstein’s holding that Mr. Trump’s argument for preemption — that because he was a candidate for federal office, or held it, federal law should apply — “are without merit; there is no colorable basis to them.” Mr. Bragg, at New York rather than Fulton County, Georgia, is likely to be gratified by Judge Hellerstein’s finding that “there is no reason to believe that the New York judicial system would not be fair and give Trump equal justice under the law.” The judge, 89 yeats of age and well into senior status, also affirms Mr. Bragg’s legal theory of the case, finding that Mr. Trump “can be convicted of a felony even if he did not commit any crime beyond the falsification, so long as he intended to do so or to conceal such a crime.” Mr. Trump’s Gotham trial is set to begin in March.

Bragg’s Courtroom Win Could Mean New York Trouble for Trump

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