No. of Recommendations: 3
Another prosecutor weighs in.
nymag.com - Trump was convicted but prosecutors contorted the lawPublishing in the uber-conservative New York Magazine, no less.
Both of these things can be true at once: The jury did its job, and this case was an ill-conceived, unjustified mess. Sure, victory is the great deodorant, but a guilty verdict doesn’t make it all pure and right. Plenty of prosecutors have won plenty of convictions in cases that shouldn’t have been brought in the first place. “But they won” is no defense to a strained, convoluted reach unless the goal is to “win,” now, by any means necessary and worry about the credibility of the case and the fallout later.Yup. lefties aren't going to enjoy what comes next. As Jack Reacher famously said...you wanted this.
The charges against Trump are obscure, and nearly entirely unprecedented. In fact, no state prosecutor — in New York, or Wyoming, or anywhere — has ever charged federal election laws as a direct or predicate state crime, against anyone, for anything. None. Ever. Even putting aside the specifics of election law, the Manhattan DA itself almost never brings any case in which falsification of business records is the only charge.In other words, if it wasn't Trump, they wouldn't have touched this.
“No man is above the law.” It’s become cliché, but it’s an important point, and it’s worth pausing to reflect on the importance of this core principle. But it’s also meaningless pablum if we unquestioningly tolerate (or worse, celebrate) deviations from ordinary process and principle to get there. The jury’s word is indeed sacrosanct, as I learned long ago. But it can’t fix everything that preceded it. Here, prosecutors got their man, for now at least — but they also contorted the law in an unprecedented manner in their quest to snare their prey.The whole thing smelled. The false piety around Respect For The Rule of Law rings very hollow when one considers a) the timeline b) the janky construction of the charges c) the rank political nature of all this and d) the damage in the amount of trust the people have for the legal system.
Again, I can understate how bad yesterday was for the fabric of the Republic.
