Former FEC Commissioner: Bragg Has Zero Authority to Enforce Campaign Finance Laws Against Trump or Anyone
As the machinations continue between Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and former President Donald Trump over Bragg’s allegation that Trump broke multiple federal campaign finance laws, a former commissioner of the Federal Election Committee asserts that Bragg lacks the authority to go after Trump.
If true, the development makes Bragg look even more like a partisan hack than the TDS-riddled prosecutor has made himself look, assuming that’s possible.
As reported by Just the News, legal expert Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Election Law Reform Initiative, argues that Bragg is going after Trump for alleged federal election crimes that are not within his jurisdiction.
No local state prosecutor has the authority to enforce federal campaign finance crimes in the first place. There’s just nothing from a factual and legal standpoint to this case. But I don’t think this prosecutor cares about that. What he’s counting on is that he’s in Manhattan.
Manhattan is one of the most liberal jurisdictions in the country. I think he believes that he can get a liberal jury to convict Trump, no matter what the facts are and no matter what the law is.
Oopsie, Alvin — assuming von Spakovsky is correct.
Von Spakovsky also told Just the News that if Trump is found guilty of any of the indictments he faces, the former president could then ask an appellate judge to reverse the decision because Bragg illegally pursued the case.
He can appeal and try to convince an appellate court that this was everything from a malicious prosecution to the fact that it wasn’t actually a violation of the law. A lot of this is going to depend on the judges and the tenure of the judges in the state court system.
And I think that’s what Bragg is counting on because his case is so weak, so nonexistent, that even folks on the left side of the political aisle — including prosecutors — have all basically said there’s just nothing to this case.
One might think — this one, anyway — that if von Spakovsky’s considered opinion is correct, Alvin Bragg would’ve known that before his crusade to get Trump began. Then again, Trump has such a visceral effect on both those who loathe him and those who love him — TDS types I and II — otherwise perfectly rational and intelligent people can do or say the darnedest things.
Hence, von Spakovsky’s observations of why Bragg became obsessed with the Trump case in the first place put the Manhattan district attorney squarely into the TDS type I category:
I think this is very personal to Alvin Bragg. I think he is a politically ambitious local DA, and he thinks that this will make him a hero with the Democratic Party and liberal organizations all over the country and that it will enhance his future political career. It’s perfectly legitimate to pay a settlement. It’s perfectly legitimate to have a nondisclosure agreement.
And Bragg’s multiplying that into 34 accounts, that in itself shows a lack of credibility. When prosecutors take a single incident, or two incidents and turn it into three dozen supposed violations of the law, that’s a sure sign that the prosecutor doesn’t have a case and is trying to overwhelm the jury.
Finally, von Spakovsky suggested that left-wing Bragg’s prosecution of a former Republican president amounts to “a dangerous weaponization of the law”:
This is a really serious matter. Anyone looking at the Trump case needs to divorce what their political opinion is of Trump because whether you like him or hate him, you need to look at the facts and evidence of what this prosecutor is doing. And I think anyone that does that will realize this is political persecution, it’s not a real prosecution.
Regardless of one’s opinion of Donald Trump — on “our side,” that is — to deny the former president was pursued by TDS-riddled Democrats from the beginning would be to deny reality.
Then again, stranger things have happened — on both sides of the political aisle.
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