Where Is the “Other Crime”?
28th May 2024
Bragg laid out his 34-count indictment of President Trump with links to underlying documents in this press release dated April 4, 2023. The indictment relies on section 175.10 of New York’s criminal law (“Falsifying business records in the first degree”): “A person is guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree when he commits the crime of falsifying business records in the second degree, and when his intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.”
In a most recent update on the trial, Andrew McCarthy concisely explained the lawlessness inherent in Bragg’s prosecution (with links to previous columns that support each point). Under New York’s state constitution, the felony statute invoked gives insufficient notice of what it is criminalizing. The indictment fails to explain what laws Trump is alleged to have broken. Bragg purports to enforce federal law over which he has no enforcement jurisdiction. To top it off, Bragg’s version of federal campaign-finance law — over which he has no authority — diverges from the interpretations followed by the two federal agencies with exclusive jurisdiction over that law (the Justice Department and the FEC).