Donald J. Trump’s failed attempts to delay the start of his criminal trial next week and to move the proceedings to a different jurisdiction are likely to have severe consequences for the conduct of his bid for another term as president of the United States, a legal expert has told The Epoch Times.
Yet a prosecution conceived and led by avowed political enemies of the GOP’s 2024 front-runner may well prove a double-edged sword, as it presents to millions of voters the reality of a “weaponized” district attorney with serious political ambitions of his own.
That’s the view of Harvey Kushner, chair of the criminal justice department at Long Island University in Brookville, New York, who sees the efforts of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to bring down President Trump as the culmination of a process underway for decades, in which a role traditionally associated with ostensibly objective law enforcement grows increasingly partisan.
“This has now come to a head, because what you’re seeing play out now is well within the political sphere in terms of its impact on a campaign of a candidate for president,” Mr. Kushner told The Epoch Times.
Defense counsel had sought to persuade appeals court Judge Lizbeth Gonzalez to put off the start of the criminal trial set for April 15 and to move it to a different location because near-constant coverage of the case on the part of New York media had made it impossible for President Trump to receive a fair and impartial trial in the court building at 100 Centre Street.
But in a resounding April 8 decision, Judge Gonzalez said no to both requests, affirming the April 15 start date and raising significant hurdles for the Trump campaign, given the trial’s expected duration of at least six to eight weeks.
Then, on April 9, New York Associate Justice Cynthia Kern denied a request for an interim stay, leaving open the possibility of a further appeal.
Leading a national campaign for the White House is taxing for candidates of any age, and President Trump, now 77, will now have to balance his canvassing and public speaking with what is sure to be a drawn-out, taxing trial.
“Unfortunately for President Trump, he will have to sit in court four days a week until the trial comes to an end,” Lonny Leitner, vice president of LS2 Group, a Minneapolis-based political consultancy, told The Epoch Times.
The Defense Case
During and since the March 25 hearing at which Judge Juan Merchan set the April 15 start date, Trump’s defense team has argued that it needed more time to review the voluminous documents related to the “hush money” allegations at the heart of the case.Defense attorney Todd Blanche has criticized the timing of the trial, calling it “completely unfair” to his client, a sentiment that Mr. Leitner shares.
“Team Trump felt that they were getting slow-rolled, as roughly 100,000 documents were turned over very late in the game by federal prosecutors. The documents should have been turned over sooner, but they weren’t. Therefore, calling for a delay was a very practical move to make,” Mr. Leitner said.
Mr. Leitner saw far-reaching consequences to Judge Merchan’s decision on April 2 to expand the gag order imposed on President Trump, which disallows his commenting publicly on the proceedings.
In Mr. Leitner’s view, it is no coincidence that the expanded gag order bars President Trump from commenting on the judge’s daughter, Loren Merchan, who happens to be the head of Authentic Campaigns, a powerful Democrat-leaning political consultancy in Chicago.
“Judge Merchan has not only not delayed the trial, he has imposed a gag order against Trump so he wouldn’t make statements about potential witnesses, court staff, and counsel that could have an impact on the outcome,” Mr. Leitner said.
“The Trump-hating judge even took it a step further, saying Trump couldn’t comment on family members, all while knowing his daughter works for a pro-Democrat firm that has supported Team Biden in the past. Talk about putting a thumb on the scale,” he added.
Mr. Leitner’s views of the timing and basis for the trial are far from universally shared among legal scholars.
In the view of Mark Graber, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Francis King Carey School of Law, the Trump defense has not put forward a cogent enough case to postpone proceedings.
“You can always ask for a delay, but it was more than within reason to allow the trial to go on. Any trial exacts a toll on the defendant. There seems to be real evidence of a crime here,” Mr. Graber told The Epoch Times.
Partisan Imperatives
But Keith Naughton, principal of Silent Majority Strategies, a Germantown, Maryland-based consultancy, sees the trial as an example of prosecutorial overreach on the part of Manhattan’s District Attorney Alvin Bragg who he says may be using this high-profile matter as a stepping stone on the way from local to national office, in the manner of figures in earlier eras of New York history.“Bragg’s indictment is, in my view, completely political. It’s all about Alvin Bragg making a name for himself in New York politics. The last Manhattan DA to reach higher office was Thomas Dewey in the 1940s.
“I think that Bragg sees this indictment as his ticket to the Senate or governorship,” Mr. Naughton told The Epoch Times.
But it would be a mistake to view Mr. Bragg as working in alignment with the Democratic Party on a national level when the prosecution is about one DA’s aspirations, he said.
“I don’t think this is coordinated with the Biden campaign, it’s just that their interests align. This trial is about Alvin Bragg and his political opportunism,” Mr. Naughton commented.
“There are much more important crimes to prosecute. Any prosecutor has to set priorities so that minor cases don’t take away resources from more important ones. Given the level of crime in Manhattan, that’s a misallocation of resources,” Mr. Naughton said.
Weaponized DAs
The aggressive efforts to prosecute President Trump at one of the most politically sensitive junctures of an election year reflects the evolution of New York’s courts and judiciary, argues Mr. Kushner.Some people continue to treat the criminal trial as a standard procedural matter, without understanding how the balance of power has shifted from police to district attorneys and attorneys general with implicit or—in some cases—explicit political aims.
“The chief law enforcement officer in a community is not the police commissioner, it’s the district attorney,” Mr. Kushner said, pointing to the enormous power that lies in the ability to bring charges against someone.
“The district attorney sets the tone. It’s not that this has never happened before, but something I saw happening with very low-level crimes in the past is now happening on a grand scale,” he said.
Mr. Kushner alluded to Ms. James’s 2018 campaign for attorney general of New York, during which she repeatedly vilified President Trump as a grifter and a con man, and threatened to investigate his business dealings in detail, or as she put it at the time, to turn a “bright light into every dark corner of his real estate dealings.”
The arbitrary exercise of prosecutorial power, or decision not to apply it, is not a new phenomenon, Mr. Kushner stressed.
He cited a hoax that took place at Hofstra University on Long Island in September 2009, in which a student accused several athletes of raping her in a bathroom and then admitted the charges were fabricated.
The falsely accused players wanted to bring charges against their accuser, but Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice, on the basis of her personal discretion, decided that the wrongful accuser had already suffered enough, Mr. Kushner said.
The zeal to prosecute President Trump in 2024 is similarly arbitrary and rooted in the personal confirmation biases and partisan agendas of his avowed foes, he argued.
Mr. Kushner said he does not fault either prosecution or defense lawyers for coming up with innovative arguments and tactics, but what is taking place now is unprecedented.
“Lawyers always use tactics, that’s the beauty of our system—they’re trying to protect their client. But you’re seeing it play out now in such an extreme manner that the whole world will be privy to what went on behind closed doors.
“The media are so focused on it that I don’t think you can have a fair trial” in a Manhattan court, Mr. Kusher stated.
“I’m really worried about this. I’m worried for our justice system because it was one of the finest in the world, but now it’s shot,” he added.
Mr. Bragg’s office did not respond by press time to a request for comment.
