Trial

Manhatten DA Vance was criticized for not charging Trump's children and Harvey Weinstein and decided not to run for reelection. This opened the door for Bragg to run. Bragg promised to go after accused criminals and did go after Weinstein who was acquitted on appeal. Bragg said, "it is a fact that I have sued Trump more than a hundred times". At first Bragg refused to prosecute Trump on the 2016 case where Trump was accused of paying hush money to a porn star. Two prosecutors in his office were upset about this decision and resigned in protest. The statute of limitations of five years had run out on the hush money charge and it was a misdemeanor. He later upgraded the charge to paying the money to conceal another crime. The indictment centers on allegations that Trump falsified internal business records at his private company while trying to cover up an effort to illegally influence the 2016 election by arranging payments that silenced claims potentially harmful to his candidacy. This was a felony and Trump was convicted. Questions about the trial have come up. First the judge was a contributor to the Biden campaign. Second the jury was selected from the voter rolls and 85% of Manhattan's voted democrat. 96 prospective jurors were called and half were dismissed because they said they could not be fair. After investigating the case The Federal Election Commission chose not to prosecute. Two major Democratic clients of the daughter of Judge Merchant's raised $93 million dollars on the case. Matthew Colangelo, former prosecutor in the Biden Justice Department shows up as an assistant DI in the Trump trail. All of these things placed a pall over the trial and led to quoting Lavrentiy Beria, the ruthless secret police chief under Stalin who said, show me the man and I'll show you the crime. Most agree that if Trump had not been running for president this charge would not have been brought. The result is that most Americans were not influenced by the verdict.