According to Jessica Levinson of Loyola Law School, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has a path littered with obstacles as he seeks to get guilty verdicts on 34 felony counts he has filed against Donald Trump, but they are surmountable and his case is legally solid.
In a column for MSNBC, Levinson said the facts of the case are on Bragg's side despite objections that are sure to come from the former president's lawyers.
As she explained, "...under New York law, prosecutors can charge falsification of business records as a felony if they can show that the defendant had the intent to commit or conceal another crime," before adding, "Bragg, as a state prosecutor, only has the power to prosecute state charges. And it is not entirely clear that New York’s law allows prosecutors to rely on a defendant’s intent to commit or conceal a federal crime, in order to bring the falsification of business records charge up from a misdemeanor to a felony. The best reading of the plain language of the New York law is that it does allow prosecutors to do this, but there has yet to be a definitive ruling on this point."
Once the DA gets a judge to rule in his favor, Levinson suggested, "The next question is whether federal campaign finance laws apply to this case. Here the answer is an easier 'yes.'"
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Dismissing complaints from Trump allies that the case is merely about "bookkeeping errors," Levinson wrote that Bragg's case is about much more than that.
"This case is about a scheme to prevent the American public from hearing negative stories about a candidate for the highest office in the land. This is a story about using unlawful means to pull the wool over the eyes of the American public. This is not about mischaracterizing certain payments on a private business records," she wrote.
"In sum, Bragg will have to connect a number of dots in order to secure a conviction against the former president of the United States. But he has the tools to do so," she said before adding the caveat, "It is way too early to say whether or not Trump will be convicted on these charges. It is just the right time, however, to conclude that a conviction appears legally and factually possible."
You can read her whole analysis here.
