‘Historic Mistake’: Law Professor Takes Apart Alvin Bragg’s Case Against Trump — Then Predicts the Outcome

Jed Handelsman Shugerman, a law professor at Boston University, thinks Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecution of Donald Trump is a “historic mistake.”

Shugerman made that conclusion after witnessing opening arguments on Monday in which prosecutors alleged Trump “orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election.” . . .

The problems with their thesis, Shugerman wrote in the New York Times, are obvious: an “unprecedented use of state law” and a “persistent avoidance of specifying an election crime or a valid theory of fraud.”

“As a reality check, it is legal for a candidate to pay for a nondisclosure agreement. Hush money is unseemly, but it is legal,” Shugerman wrote.

He continued:

In Monday’s opening argument, the prosecutor Matthew Colangelo still evaded specifics about what was illegal about influencing an election, but then he claimed, “It was election fraud, pure and simple.” None of the relevant state or federal statutes refer to filing violations as fraud. Calling it “election fraud” is a legal and strategic mistake, exaggerating the case and setting up the jury with high expectations that the prosecutors cannot meet.

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