The Insanity at the Heart of the Trump Trial
4th May 2024
What was the “intent to commit another crime or aid and conceal the commission thereof” that prosecutors used to raise falsification of business records from a misdemeanor to a felony? In nearly every case of alleged falsification of records that has been charged as a felony in New York, the defendant was charged with another crime — that is, prosecutors made it clear what the other crime was. In Trump’s case, the indictment did not specify any other crime. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said the law did not require him to specify the other crime.
So Trump faced felony charges without knowing what he was accused of doing. And the really amazing thing is that the trial is now underway and Bragg has still not specified what the other crime is. It is a key element of the case. Without it, the charges against Trump could never have been brought because they were misdemeanors long past the statute of limitations. It is the other crime that makes this whole prosecution possible. But the prosecutor has not specified what it is.
If that sounds vaguely unconstitutional to you, you’re right. As former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy points out, the Fifth Amendment “requires a felony charge to be spelled out in an indictment whose criminal elements have been established by probable cause to the satisfaction of a grand jury.” The problem, McCarthy continues, is that the election-stealing conspiracy Bragg’s prosecutors are accusing Trump of engaging in is “not charged in the indictment” and, further, “there is no such conspiracy crime in New York penal law.” McCarthy also argues that the charges violate the New York Constitution.
It’s a political witch-hunt, pure and simple.