Will he or won’t he? That’s the question being asked of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who not only hasn’t indicted Donald Trump yet, but also dismissed his grand jury for several days.
The case around Trump centers on payments made to Stormy Daniels, an adult film star with whom President Trump allegedly had a tryst many years ago. You can read the timeline of the affair and its subsequent twists and turns at CBS News.
What the Manhattan DA is trying to allege is that the payments made to Daniels were done in order to protect Trump’s reputation ahead of the Presidential election, and that thus they were a campaign contribution, an illegal one at that. And therefore classifying payments made to Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, to reimburse him for the payments made to Daniels was not only falsifying business expenses but also doing so in order to conceal another crime, the alleged campaign finance violation.
You have to give Bragg some credit at least, as left-wing lawyers are always coming up with creative ways to interpret plain language. But let’s look at the facts.
Remember how President Trump said that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and his supporters would still support him? And we’re supposed to believe that someone who was that confident in his support, and someone who was married three times and known as a notorious womanizer, would somehow be afraid that news of his dalliance with a pornstar would sink his chances at winning the election?
It’s laughable.
Far more likely is that Trump was trying to keep details of the affair out of the public eye so as not to ruin his marriage with Melania, who had given birth to their son a few months before Trump’s alleged fling with Daniels. The fact that it could also benefit his campaign is tangential.
After all, the numerous media mentions of Trump also helped benefit his name recognition and provided him with free publicity. Should those be considered campaign contributions?
And now that Trump is a declared Presidential candidate, images of him being arrested and paraded in New York City would undoubtedly rile up his supporters and even non-supporters who are on the fence, giving his campaign a shot in the arm. By the DA’s own logic, shouldn’t that indictment and arrest also be considered a campaign contribution? Heck, Trump has already raised millions just because of the threat of being arrested.
Bragg’s attempt to indict Trump on a felony is tenuous. He has to hope for a favorable jury, if the case even gets that far. But with the grand jury so far not indicting, and rumors circulating that the case is blowing up, this might end up being much ado about nothing. If so, Trump may end up becoming the new “Teflon Don”.