As we write nearby, the expansive indictment by a Georgia grand jury of Donald Trump and 18 allies persuasively establishes that the former president orchestrated a conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 election. It nicely complements the charges brought by a federal grand jury as part of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the Jan. 6 attack, as well as the allegations by Smith that Trump illegally kept and shared defense secrets, and obstructed the government’s attempt to get them back.
The filing of three major criminal cases against a former president, including two that build the case that he tried to trash the very democratic system he swore to protect, ought to be enough to give anyone pause about returning him to power — we’re looking at you, Republican voters who say they prefer Trump by 40 percentage points over any GOP rival. It also ought to give pause to a Democratic district attorney here in Manhattan who in April, before any of these other indictments materialized, brought a weaker case against Trump.
The People of the State of New York against Donald Trump charges the slimy real estate promoter with 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree for covering up payments to an adult film actress with whom he had an affair. The crime, normally a misdemeanor, becomes a felony when done with “an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.” Bragg didn’t initially explain what that other crime or those other crimes might be, sparking some real concerns, even among those who see Trump as a chronic law-breaker. A month later, helpfully, the DA spelled out a number of possibilities.
We think it’s highly likely the notoriously shifty and self-dealing Trump indeed broke these laws, so we don’t fault Bragg for bringing the charges. But they’re unquestionably an order of magnitude less serious than the charges brought against the former president since. (Moreover, we continue to wonder why Bragg declined to pursue more significant allegations that Trump systematically inflated his worth in his business dealings.)
Any honest assessment of the charges against the former president leads to the conclusion that the Manhattan charges amount to the least serious and least relevant to this particular American moment; if at all possible, voters deserve a definitive judicial conclusion of the other three before going to the polls next November. To the extent that Bragg’s prosecution makes such a conclusion less likely, it’s a problem.
In these pages over the weekend, political strategist Bradley Tusk wrote, “Covering up sex with a porn star is not exactly the same as trying to overthrow the federal government. Bragg’s case is due to start on March 25, two months before Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Florida document trial of Trump. (A date for Smith’s Jan. 6 trial in Washington has not been set yet, although Smith has requested Jan. 2, which seems unlikely.) This all helps Trump, whose Manhattan trial will be in the middle of the GOP presidential primary, just weeks after Super Tuesday.”
Tusk continues, “A prosecution on a comparatively low-level case by elite Manhattan lawyers only reinforces everything Trump voters already believe and despise.”
Over to you, Mr. District Attorney.
—New York Daily News Editorial Board/TNS