When 76-year-old former President Donald Trump went before 61-year-old Judge Juan Merchan April 4 for his arrangement on 34 Class E felonies, the judge heard him plead not guilty on all charges. Trump was charged by 49-year-old Democrat partisan Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg who upgraded ordinary misdemeanors to Class E felonies on the basis of Trump trying to cover up some underlying crime. Bragg didn’t specify what crime Trump as trying to cover-up, only saying that it might relate to New York or federal election law. Bragg pushed the envelope charging Trump’s alleged misdemeanor bookkeeping crimes as Class E felonies normally carrying a four-year jail sentence. Upgrading ordinary misdemeanors to Class E felonies showed Bragg’s undeniable bias against Trump. Bragg ran for office in 2021 telling voters that he would get Trump if elected Manhattan’s first Black District Attorney.
Overcharging on ordinary misdemeanors should have alerted Merchan that something fishy was going on from Bragg’s office. Merchan arraigned Trump without mentioning a thing about the charges, telling both defense and prosecution to refrain from incendiary rhetoric. Hours after his arraignment, Trump gave a rousing, defiant speech at Mar-a-Lago, accusing Judge Merchan of holding extreme bias against him, primarily for ruling against his 75-year-old former CFO Allen Weisselberg, currently spending six months at Riker’s Island on a plea deal for mishandling fringe benefits received but not properly reported. Trump said that Merhan’s daughter worked for the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump claims Judge Merchan’s daughter, Loren, now works for the Biden-Harris campaign. After years of investigations by the FBI and Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Trump doesn’t trust the system.
Merchan admonished both sides to not say anything incendiary between now and when the court’s back in session sometime in December. Whether that happens or not is anyone’s guess. Trump sees Merchan as a Trump-hating judge, not someone who can preside indepdenly, having already ruled against Weisselberg and the Trump organization. Merchan said nobody should “jeopardize the safety or well-being of any individual,” referring to past statements that Trump made that might have influenced the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riots or death threats to certain individuals. How anyone expected Trump to stop the Jan. 6 riots or control anyone from breaking the law or making threats or violent gestures is unknown. Saying that Merchan and his family are Trump-hating Democrats is not an incendiary statement, just stating the facts. Most Democrats don’t care whether the system is biased against Trump.
When Trump was subjected to years of FBI investigations, approved by former President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, involving his former Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch, National Security Adviser Susan Rice, CIA Director John Brennan and FBI Director James Comey, no Democrat in Congress or elsewhere cared whether the investigation was illegal. Not one of Obama’s men that spied on Trump and his 2016 campaign were prosecuted because the Department of Justice agreed with the actions. Never mind that the probable cause used by the CIA and FBI involved former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s fake Steele dossier, stuffed with lies about Trump’s ties to the Kremlin. All of Obama’s officials knew the probable cause was bogus by Hillary but that didn’t stop them from launching an FBI counterintelligence investigation into Trump and his 2016 campaign.
Now that Trump’s formally charged by the Manhattan DA, he understands that the same corruption that harassed his campaign and presidency has now carried over to his real estate business. How ironic that none of the charges against Trump had anything to do with his time as president. All the complex foreign policy and economic management led to no charges, only a foreign policy and economic successes. No, the Manhattan DA digs into the Trump’s business dealings to dredge up any dirt possible on the former president. Whatever happened in the 2016 campaign with Stormy Daniels AKA Stephanie Clifford, it had nothing to do with the campaign other than receiving a $130,000 check to resolve a private matter with Trump. How Bragg construes that as a campaign finance violation is anyone’s guess. Merchan should ask Bragg why he over-charged Trump on 34 felony counts.
Merchan didn’t ask Bragg to stop his star witness, disgraced, disbarred, convicted felon former Atty. Michael Cohen from going on anti-Trump TV and radio talk shows. Unlike his predecessor Cyrus Vance Jr., who refused to charge Trump, Bragg thinks embracing Cohen has his star witness has bolstered his case. Most legal experts think Bragg will live-and-die with Cohen as his star witness. Trump legal team led Todd Blanche, Joe Tacopina and Susan Niecheles can’t fathom how Bragg could upgrade all of Trump charges to Class E felonies without a coherent legal theory of what, if anything, Trump concealed other crimes. “What the prosecutors and judges did to that man [Weisselberg], I will never forget, because it is right out of the old Soviet Union,” Trump told his Mar-a-Lago audience. Trump’s vociferous protests over Bragg’s biased prosecution will only get louder.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
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