New York: It had all the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster: sex, politics, power, money.
But the indictment of Donald Trump was also a modern-day tragedy on many fronts: a former president accused of breaking the law for electoral gain; a legal system thrown into doubt over claims of a witch-hunt; a country so bitterly divided it’s hard to see how it could ever unite.
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As one visibly frustrated New Yorker lamented as he protested outside the Manhattan court where Trump was arraigned: “We all need to start coming together. Time out for the hate. Time out for this bullshit.”
Even in a country where so many inviolable lines have been crossed, and so many democratic norms have been shattered, the sight of a former president charged over alleged hush-money paid to a porn star is truly surreal.
Satellite TV trucks and news crews lined the pavements of Lower Manhattan, stretching several blocks. Crowds formed on street corners for hours waiting to catch a glimpse of the incendiary Republican, while protesters and counterprotesters demonstrated outside the court to air their respective grievances.
And there was the sad spectacle of Trump himself, entering and exiting District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office looking like a chastened man whose past had finally come back to haunt him.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg during his news conference in New York.Credit:Bloomberg
A few hours later, having digested the contents of the indictment and the public’s response to it, Trump was back to his defiant self.
Why? Because for all the salacious details and all the precedents set, the case of Alvin Bragg versus Donald Trump (officially the People v Donald J Trump) is far from a slam dunk – at least not yet.
If anything, the unsealed indictment left so many questions unanswered that it solidified Trump’s stronghold over his party and gave weight to his claims of a politically motivated attack.
As Columbia Law School professor John Coffee told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age: “It’s half complete. We still don’t know Bragg’s full theory.”
Boiled down, Trump stands accused of conspiring to influence the 2016 election by embarking on a series of hush-money deals to cover up sex scandals that could have harmed his chances of becoming president.
The central part of the prosecution case relates to a $US130,000 payment Trump’s then attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen, paid to silence adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. Trump then reimbursed Cohen through his company, but allegedly disguised the payment as a legal retainer.
To build his case, Bragg and his team have cited other shonky deals involving the reality TV star-turned-politician: one relates to a $US30,000 payment allegedly made to a former Trump Tower doorman who claimed to know Trump fathered a child out of wedlock; another involves an alleged $US150,000 payment made to former Playboy playmate Karen McDougal after a Trump ally at the National Enquirer bought the rights to her story in order to silence it.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to falsification of business records as part of the scheme, which is typically a misdemeanour offence under New York state law. But this can be upgraded to a low-level felony if the prosecution can show the defendant cooked the books with the intention to commit or conceal another crime.
The problem – pointed out by Republicans and legal experts alike – is that the indictment does not explain which federal or state crime has been violated.
Whether Bragg can provide the evidence required to get a jury to find probable cause is yet to be seen. But the risk is that this case, as historic as it may be, will undermine other important probes for which Trump could also be charged.
Among them is the Fulton County investigation into election interference in Georgia, the state that helped secure Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. There’s also special counsel Jack Smith’s inquiry into classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago, and the federal investigation into the January 6 Capitol attack.
“Whether Donald Trump was trying to overturn the election to prevent the transfer of power and whether he was a real threat to American democracy is a lot more important than whatever the hell he was going with Stormy Daniels,” Coffee says. “This matter, by comparison, is just a sideshow.”
Whatever the case, a precedent has been set. For more than two centuries, presidents have been declared immune from prosecution while in office and effectively after they leave. Now the dam has finally broken.
Trump was the first American president to win office with no prior government or military service, the first sitting president to be impeached twice, and the first former president to face criminal referrals from a congressional committee after a damning probe into the Capitol riot recommended he be prosecuted.
Will he soon become the first former president convicted over sex, money and power?
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