The first of Trump’s criminal trials could be the “goofiest of all cases” against him
BY BRIAN BENNETT AND ERIC CORTELLESSA
WHEN MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEY Alvin Bragg indicted Donald Trump last April, the case drew some derision. Prosecuting a former President over hush-money payments to a porn star seemed trivial, critics said, and relied on a legal technicality to bump the charges up to felonies. Given that three other cases were targeting Trump for trying to overthrow the 2020 election and refusing to return national-security secrets, Bragg’s case, the first criminal indictment of a former President in U.S. history, seemed like weak sauce.
But after nine months and 91 felony charges in four courts, the New York case has become less of an afterthought. In fact, it might end up being the main show. Bragg, more than special prosecutor Jack Smith or Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis, may be the best positioned to secure a felony conviction of Trump before the election.
New York State Judge Juan Merchan recently cleared the way for jury selection to begin on March 25 and said the trial could last for six weeks, setting up a possible verdict in May. If convicted, Trump could face up to four years in prison.
While Trump’s inner circle says it would prefer none of the criminal trials happen before Election Day, some see the New York case coming to trial first as the next best outcome for the former President. “It is the goofiest of all cases,” says a Republican strategist close to the Trump campaign. “If Trump beats this case, it sets the tone and feeds into his narrative that all of these cases are a witch hunt.”
BRAGG’S PROSECUTION HINGESon the timing of Trump’s efforts to cover up a sex scandal weeks before the 2016 election. Trump is charged with 34 counts of faking business records to hide payments to actor Stormy Daniels intended to stop her from publicly describing a sexual encounter. Bragg has argued that the charges should be bumped up to felonies from misdemeanors because the payments were in service of a federal crime: election interference.
Trump’s legal team had tried to toss out the indictment on grounds that state laws don’t apply to federal elections and that the case was politically motivated. Merchan rejected those claims, which Bragg and his staff saw as further bolstering the wisdom of their legal strategy.
The core of the case “is not money for sex,” Bragg said in a Dec. 22 intervi
