As jury selection begins this week in the New York criminal case against Donald Trump, we should revisit the question of exactly how Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg plans to transform the former president's alleged falsification of business records into 34 felonies. Bragg, who is pursuing the first-ever prosecution of a former president, has cited several possible legal theories, and all of them are problematic in one way or another.
"The heart of the case," Bragg says, is Trump's attempt to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election by covering up his purported affair with porn star Stormy Daniels. As Bragg sees it, Trump "corrupt[ed] a presidential election" by hiding negative information from voters. Because there is nothing inherently illegal about that, Bragg is relying on a dubious chain of reasoning to charge Trump with felonies under New York law.
