Over the past several days, a debate has raged over the merits of an indictment nobody had seen. Is it a strong case? Is it weak? Is it legally deficient? Is it an outrage that New York prosecutors are bringing a case that should be federal or shouldn’t be brought at all? Is the legal theory by which prosecutors are bumping up misdemeanor records falsification into felonies too much of a stretch? Is the whole thing a witch hunt—an effort to target Donald Trump, rather than to prosecute a crime? Is it a great shame that this New York case, not something related to Jan. 6 or Mar-a-Lago documents or election interference in Georgia, is the first criminal case against a former president in American history actually to proceed to indictment?
A great many commentators didn’t bother to wait the few days it would take to actually read the indictment before weighing in at least semi-informed on these questions.
Ironically, even now that the indictment has actually been unsealed, it’s still too early to answer many of them.
The indictment sought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and released today by the city’s Supreme Court—New York’s confusing name for trial courts—is not a trivial document. And Trump’s defenders should not kid themselves that this case is mere politics. It alleges serious misconduct: plotting to pay hush money to multiple people to avoid electoral consequences and falsifying documents to cover it up. And it does so with an apparently powerful array of witnesses and documents to back it up.
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