The guilty verdict of Donald Trump on May 30, which delivered an unprecedented ruling of 34 felony counts against the former President, looks to be as unsuccessful as it is dishonest, already spurring a new round of support for Trump in the wake of the conviction. CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig wrote a powerful https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-was-convicted-but-prosecutors-contorted-the-law.html">article in New York Magazine’s Intelligencer page on May 31, summarizing the absurd nature of the case. For example, District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who led the prosecution, but had proudly campaigned for DA as an anti-Trump crusader himself when he ran for and won his seat in 2022. “It is a fact that I have sued Trump over 100 times” he said while campaigning. Moreover, the judge donated money—merely $35, but in violation of a New York rule prohibiting judges from making political donations of any kind—to a pro-Biden, anti-Trump political operation,
But beyond this, the charges “push the outer boundaries of the law and due process,” Honig writes. “The charges against Trump are obscure, and nearly entirely unprecedented. In fact, no state prosecutor—in New York, or Wyoming, or anywhere—has ever charged federal election laws as a direct or predicate state crime, against anyone, for anything. None. Ever.” Bragg and the prosecution worked to “inflate” the minor infraction, a misdemeanor—essentially paying a prostitute out of the wrong bank account—into a full-fledged crime with multiple felonies. The manipulation of legal statutes was so blatant, Honig writes, that even DA Bragg’s own employees called it the “Zombie Case.” He concludes by saying: “Here, prosecutors got their man, for now at least—but they also contorted the law in an unprecedented manner in their quest to snare their prey.”
Far from being a nail in the coffin for a future Trump Administration, many are worried that it will actually have the opposite effect on his campaign. Among these is the City of London’s weekly The Economist, which complains that “this prosecution has done more to help than hurt Mr. Trump’s chances of winning back the White House.” The case will likely only energize his supporters, they worry, a fact which will only be amplified by the “complex” and “contestable” nature of the charges, which “always seemed too much of a stretch to command widespread public legitimacy.”
Not surprisingly, Trump’s campaign announced it had broken previous fundraising records in the hours after the conviction was announced, which included a large number of new contributors.
Already anticipating the response, President Biden shrieked during remarks to the media on May 31 that “it’s reckless, it’s dangerous, and it’s irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don’t like the verdict.”
