You (and soooo many others) might be right about the Stormy case. I agree that it's complicated. I agree that for many people, it's really NBD, especially in light of all of the other things we'd like to see Trump held accountable for.
However, three mild pushbacks.
First, I don't think Alvin Bragg is dumb, either generally or politically. So, if he thinks a case can be made, I have to respect his call.
Second, even if this particular indictment doesn't result in the convictions we'd like, I think the fact that Bragg went ahead and did it may well give a shot of courage to the prosecutors looking at the other cases.
Third, there just comes a point when we have to stand up, stiffen our spines, and say, "This was wrong. It was illegal. We can't just let it slide because it might be hard to get a win." All too many Democratic officials and all too many Very Serious People in the media have been cowering, regarding Trump. If we don't draw some lines now, when will we ever?
Completely agree. Michael Cohen already served time in prison for doing the dirty work for Trump while the guy who ordered it done, Trump, hasn't. Same as January 6. Many of the small fry who responded to Trump's siren cry are in prison while the suits haven't been indicted.
In law. Due to something we like to call physics. Laws that get enforced. Especially white collar crimes routinely go unprosecuted. It’s more common to not prosecute. That’s because The sheer complication of white collar crime (look of the book “three felonies a day” for a great run down of this) make it that there are hundreds of them committed probably hourly. That’s not because there’s a lot of actual crime. That’s because a lot of that “crime” is usually just forgetting to file paperwork correctly or telling your wife about your new upcoming drug (you know. Insider trading). Because of this prosecutors have to CONSTANTLY make calls on where they divert their resources, which are limited, due to physics. In fact from what I understand being a DA has a lot more to do with just picking the cases that will actually stick then chasing every lead where,sure there might be a crime, but is it worth diverting attention from other more serious crimes to pursue it when it’s at best a 50/50. Even if is is ethical to do so. Calls have to be made.
Now I’m not trump fan. But this prosecution looks nakedly political. It’s there to embarrass republicans. It will. It will embarrass republicans to democrats. You know. People they don’t like and don’t care if they possibly think less of them. It’s totally legal. He probably did break a law here (though arguments can be made that or ALL the laws he broke this is going to be the hardest to make stick but WILL get the most media attention). It’s the ultimate self high five.
And that’s kind of embarrassing. For Bragg.
Who already once has had to be bullied by Twitter to not prosecute a bodega worker for self defense. People at this level of society, we call them elites, we’re that true. If they were elite they’d start acting like it.
And getting down in the mud with Trump to wrestle this pig over a porn star payoff is the ultimate in lowering yourself to their level.
If democrats want to be seen as a better option to republicans it sure would be nice if they stopped stopping to their level just to score east partisan wins.
I appreciate your points, although I don't agree with all of them.
First, agree with the reality that white collar crime happens all the time, rarely gets prosecuted for many (pragmatic and other) reasons. Don't agree that "everyone else is doing it" should be an automatic "Get out of indictment free!" card. Same as any other crime: not everyone who commits one, in any area, gets in trouble, but we do the best we can. Sometimes, that involves making choices, on the part of the prosecution team. Time and resources are limited. As you say, calls have to be made.
Agree that one could find some crimes, somewhere in the jurisdiction of Bragg, that are arguably more serious. Don't agree that this means that Trump's crimes should therefore be tossed in the trash. I have seen no evidence that other potential prosecutions, of worse crimes in particular, are being put on the back burner because of the work on the Trump case.
Completely disagree that this is "nakedly political." How you, and others, perceive it, is of course subjective. The way I see it is this: FINALLY, someone ISN'T afraid of "the politics" or "the optics" and is just doing what is the right thing to do.
Also disagree that "getting down in the mud with Trump" is "lowering yourself to their level." I mean, you don't actually believe that's true when the DA elects to prosecute, say, a murderer or child molester, do you?
Finally, I agree in the abstract about it *sometimes* being nice that the Dems don't always sink to the level of the Reps. However, in this particular case, since I don't agree that it is a purely political move, I don't see it as stooping at all. Instead, I see it as Dems being the actual party of the rule of law, where Reps are now so unashamedly obvious about their utter disregard for the law that I think they have abandoned that slogan. You know, kind of like how FoxNews™ no longer uses "Fair and Balanced."
In summary, I maintain that this is a good thing that Bragg is doing. I don't think he has any reason to be embarrassed, and even if the jury lets Trump off, I will still feel that way. It is the right thing to do.
Finally, I look forward to vigorous prosecution by the teams in Georgia and in the special prosecutor's office, for what are (I hope you agree) much more serious crimes. But meanwhile, I'm glad that something is being done on this thing. As I think I said earlier, if nothing else, perhaps it will give the other teams a shot of courage.
Fair. If you want to see it that way. But I think maybe you’re letting your fandom get in the way of maybe seeing what’s happening.
Bragg is nakedly Political. I know far too many people who wrote about and follow politics (both sides and independents) who will vouch for that.
And yeah. Listen I hope it comes out that the case is rock solid and the guy loses in absolute embarrassment.
But what are the odds of that? That’s where game theory (like real actual game theory. “Game theory is the study of mathematical models of strategic interactions among rational agents.”) comes in. You do have to weigh what winning and or losing means.
If trump wins or the judge throws the case out then what? Is it worth it? That’s the weight you have to put on the scale.
Is it worth adding another “Russia gate” to trumps list of attacks by a “liberal media” (his words not mine”. Every time something doesn’t stick to this dude (it looks completely made up) it just makes him look like a goddamned superhero to his followers.
This makes arguing with those people impossible. And we have to have an argument with those people because those people need to be brought back to the light.
Giving up on that and going the burn it all route is not going to end well.
But hey. We’ll share a crisp high five if these charges stick.
But I’ve also got a big fat “told you so” in my back pocket of he both gets off and gets the Republican nomination.
I would not doubt for a minute that Bragg is a political animal. I can't imagine how he would have gotten to where is today if he were not. But there is a flip side to that, as well, it seems to me. When I spoke earlier about my respect for his intelligence in deciding whether to press forward on this case, I figured that his ability to do political calculations was no small part of it.
For the record, I am not a fanboi, concerning Bragg. I did not even know who he was until this case started making headlines. I salute him for doing what I think is the right thing to do, again, in this case. That's all.
As to the odds of winning: well, yeah. I certainly wouldn't bet much on the outcome you and I would like to see. In fact, I'll be amazed if we ever get to see the case in court -- Trump is just too good at stalling legal matters forever, and if he can do that here, until he gets the GOP nomination*, I suspect all of the Very Serious People will be calling on Bragg to drop the case, because reasons.
That said, I can only repeat what I said above: sometimes, a stand just has to be made, even if seems like it might not be successful. And I'll also repeat my hope that Bragg's having taken the initial plunge will bolster the courage of other prosecutors.
Finally, I don't think there is really all that much to worry about, concerning Trump gaining ammunition be getting acquitted in this case. For one thing, I'm sure the punditocracy will quickly cluster around, "I always said it was a hard case to win, and not that important anyway." For another -- and a more important one -- Trump being able to bleat about "ViCtOrY oVeR TeH LiBrUl MeDiA wItChUnT!!!1!" isn't going to move the needle for a significant fraction of voters, I don't think. Those who support him can't pull the voting levers any harder, and those who oppose him aren't going to suddenly look upon him with favor. It'll just be flood of headlines washing over a populace whose minds are already made up.
__________
* I don't think Trump has to win this case to get the GOP nomination. I think he will get it, win or lose. Unless he actually gets sent directly to jail, do not pass Go, etc. Which is not going to happen.
I haven't yet decided whether I think he will win the nomination if and when the other cases proceed as we hope they might. I guess I'm not seeing any point in thinking about these eventualities until I see some actual major next steps.
Great article. One minor quibble, the charges against Trump in his first impeachment were obstruction of Congress (not justice), but you can be forgiven due to Jerry Nadler's (deliberate?) hesitation in reading the announcement of charges, letting everyone watching mentally fill in the blank with "justice".
Which reminds me, where do bumblers like Nadler and Schiff fit in the reboot? Larry, Darryl, and Darryl?
Good catch -- thank you. Corrected. And the Nadler/Schiff characters -- much like DJ on "Roseanne/The Conners" -- will probably be part of the reboot even though nobody was big fans of them the first time.
I am a conservative but I am NOT a fan of Trump. Trump needs to go away, but the left wing media refuses to let him go. Every hour of every day MSN, CBS, CNN, etc have to talk about Trump. They will not talk about Hunter Bidens laptop, the millions the Bidens have taken from China, the crisis at the boarder, the unfairness of men competing against females, or the horrible job Pres.
Biden did with Afghanistan. They just want to talk about Trump. I do think Bragg is an idiot, but mostly due to Trump derangement syndrome just like the media. Filing a frivolous indictment only makes his supporters more determined because they think he being persecuted. From all I read and hear about the things he has done, why has not one single indictment has been filed with any meat on its bones. This indictment just show how scared they are of Trump. Again, and I want him to go away.
Only slightly off topic: why on god's green earth did the West Wing writers think that creating a *new* CREEP committee was the thing that Leo McGarry should do? He could have called the committee almost literally anything else.
Just because this New York indictment was made first doesn't rule out that a verdict in a different case might happen before this one's trial is over. The Trump retained documents case is much simpler.
I don’t think it can be overstated how much damage the coverage of “Russia gate” did to the medias credibility in the eyes of trump die hards.
No matter what trump does. Or is accused of doing. Wolf was cried. And it was cried a lot. It was a terrible argumentative move if you’re goal is to actually ween people away from trump. The “make anything stick” brigade muddied the argumentative waters where I have actually had conversations with trump fans where I bring up the shorty things he did and all they fire back is a sarcastic.
“Just like Russia huh?”
Intimating that it’s all bullshit that’s utterly made up.
For humor value, it seems like you missed an obvious joke about the fact that the "tax fraud" issue involves mischaracterizing nontaxable expense reimbursement as taxable income, resulting in a tax payment that is way too large. This is another thing that people aren't likely to get particularly upset over.
I feel your pain! Why won't Trumpenstein die? Maybe somebody will throw holy water on him and we can all enjoy watching him wither and writhe in pain until all that's left is a pile of dirty, smoking ashes. One can dream.
He's an unfortunate genius at exploiting two defining characteristics of this age: cynicism and short attention spans. He brilliantly gives voice to a lot of people's unspoken doubts, fears, and hatreds. Then he is rewarded for it by media attention and icon status to millions. And he keeps a running blather all the while, kicking up cultural dust to obscure his personal misdeeds and confuse his opponents.
It's truly maddening to those who understand the charade. But it seems he's destined to keep going until the "conservative" voters (I'll be damned if I understand what they're trying to conserve) wake up to his con. Woke! Ha!
If the January 6th Committee hearings couldn't produce ANY meaningful lasting sound bites, with wall to wall coverage, cute Cassidy and the prospect of Trump lunging for an SS agent, what on earth does the media and assorted pundits think a state attorney general will provide? Short of burning down a church, and an Evangelical one at that, Trump will carry on and any attention to his all cap mania should literally be ignored in any/every way possible. You think you can do that? C'mon dude - you're smart, funny and there are better things to talk about.
I tend to think that the NY prosecution is more like a bad episode of a pretty good show. Like in Season Two of the Sopranos when there’s a whole dust up between Tony’s crew and Native Americans over Columbus Day. (Actually, having grown up around a lot of goombas, I personally loved this episode, but you get the point.) If nothing else, the Trump Show’s massive number of characters does something for me. Like, who will play Matt Whitticar or, for that matter, The Mooch?
I want to watch Genghis Karl. Please make that show happen. Thanks.
You (and soooo many others) might be right about the Stormy case. I agree that it's complicated. I agree that for many people, it's really NBD, especially in light of all of the other things we'd like to see Trump held accountable for.
However, three mild pushbacks.
First, I don't think Alvin Bragg is dumb, either generally or politically. So, if he thinks a case can be made, I have to respect his call.
Second, even if this particular indictment doesn't result in the convictions we'd like, I think the fact that Bragg went ahead and did it may well give a shot of courage to the prosecutors looking at the other cases.
Third, there just comes a point when we have to stand up, stiffen our spines, and say, "This was wrong. It was illegal. We can't just let it slide because it might be hard to get a win." All too many Democratic officials and all too many Very Serious People in the media have been cowering, regarding Trump. If we don't draw some lines now, when will we ever?
Completely agree. Michael Cohen already served time in prison for doing the dirty work for Trump while the guy who ordered it done, Trump, hasn't. Same as January 6. Many of the small fry who responded to Trump's siren cry are in prison while the suits haven't been indicted.
In law. Due to something we like to call physics. Laws that get enforced. Especially white collar crimes routinely go unprosecuted. It’s more common to not prosecute. That’s because The sheer complication of white collar crime (look of the book “three felonies a day” for a great run down of this) make it that there are hundreds of them committed probably hourly. That’s not because there’s a lot of actual crime. That’s because a lot of that “crime” is usually just forgetting to file paperwork correctly or telling your wife about your new upcoming drug (you know. Insider trading). Because of this prosecutors have to CONSTANTLY make calls on where they divert their resources, which are limited, due to physics. In fact from what I understand being a DA has a lot more to do with just picking the cases that will actually stick then chasing every lead where,sure there might be a crime, but is it worth diverting attention from other more serious crimes to pursue it when it’s at best a 50/50. Even if is is ethical to do so. Calls have to be made.
Now I’m not trump fan. But this prosecution looks nakedly political. It’s there to embarrass republicans. It will. It will embarrass republicans to democrats. You know. People they don’t like and don’t care if they possibly think less of them. It’s totally legal. He probably did break a law here (though arguments can be made that or ALL the laws he broke this is going to be the hardest to make stick but WILL get the most media attention). It’s the ultimate self high five.
And that’s kind of embarrassing. For Bragg.
Who already once has had to be bullied by Twitter to not prosecute a bodega worker for self defense. People at this level of society, we call them elites, we’re that true. If they were elite they’d start acting like it.
And getting down in the mud with Trump to wrestle this pig over a porn star payoff is the ultimate in lowering yourself to their level.
If democrats want to be seen as a better option to republicans it sure would be nice if they stopped stopping to their level just to score east partisan wins.
I appreciate your points, although I don't agree with all of them.
First, agree with the reality that white collar crime happens all the time, rarely gets prosecuted for many (pragmatic and other) reasons. Don't agree that "everyone else is doing it" should be an automatic "Get out of indictment free!" card. Same as any other crime: not everyone who commits one, in any area, gets in trouble, but we do the best we can. Sometimes, that involves making choices, on the part of the prosecution team. Time and resources are limited. As you say, calls have to be made.
Agree that one could find some crimes, somewhere in the jurisdiction of Bragg, that are arguably more serious. Don't agree that this means that Trump's crimes should therefore be tossed in the trash. I have seen no evidence that other potential prosecutions, of worse crimes in particular, are being put on the back burner because of the work on the Trump case.
Completely disagree that this is "nakedly political." How you, and others, perceive it, is of course subjective. The way I see it is this: FINALLY, someone ISN'T afraid of "the politics" or "the optics" and is just doing what is the right thing to do.
Also disagree that "getting down in the mud with Trump" is "lowering yourself to their level." I mean, you don't actually believe that's true when the DA elects to prosecute, say, a murderer or child molester, do you?
Finally, I agree in the abstract about it *sometimes* being nice that the Dems don't always sink to the level of the Reps. However, in this particular case, since I don't agree that it is a purely political move, I don't see it as stooping at all. Instead, I see it as Dems being the actual party of the rule of law, where Reps are now so unashamedly obvious about their utter disregard for the law that I think they have abandoned that slogan. You know, kind of like how FoxNews™ no longer uses "Fair and Balanced."
In summary, I maintain that this is a good thing that Bragg is doing. I don't think he has any reason to be embarrassed, and even if the jury lets Trump off, I will still feel that way. It is the right thing to do.
Finally, I look forward to vigorous prosecution by the teams in Georgia and in the special prosecutor's office, for what are (I hope you agree) much more serious crimes. But meanwhile, I'm glad that something is being done on this thing. As I think I said earlier, if nothing else, perhaps it will give the other teams a shot of courage.
Fair. If you want to see it that way. But I think maybe you’re letting your fandom get in the way of maybe seeing what’s happening.
Bragg is nakedly Political. I know far too many people who wrote about and follow politics (both sides and independents) who will vouch for that.
And yeah. Listen I hope it comes out that the case is rock solid and the guy loses in absolute embarrassment.
But what are the odds of that? That’s where game theory (like real actual game theory. “Game theory is the study of mathematical models of strategic interactions among rational agents.”) comes in. You do have to weigh what winning and or losing means.
If trump wins or the judge throws the case out then what? Is it worth it? That’s the weight you have to put on the scale.
Is it worth adding another “Russia gate” to trumps list of attacks by a “liberal media” (his words not mine”. Every time something doesn’t stick to this dude (it looks completely made up) it just makes him look like a goddamned superhero to his followers.
This makes arguing with those people impossible. And we have to have an argument with those people because those people need to be brought back to the light.
Giving up on that and going the burn it all route is not going to end well.
But hey. We’ll share a crisp high five if these charges stick.
But I’ve also got a big fat “told you so” in my back pocket of he both gets off and gets the Republican nomination.
I would not doubt for a minute that Bragg is a political animal. I can't imagine how he would have gotten to where is today if he were not. But there is a flip side to that, as well, it seems to me. When I spoke earlier about my respect for his intelligence in deciding whether to press forward on this case, I figured that his ability to do political calculations was no small part of it.
For the record, I am not a fanboi, concerning Bragg. I did not even know who he was until this case started making headlines. I salute him for doing what I think is the right thing to do, again, in this case. That's all.
As to the odds of winning: well, yeah. I certainly wouldn't bet much on the outcome you and I would like to see. In fact, I'll be amazed if we ever get to see the case in court -- Trump is just too good at stalling legal matters forever, and if he can do that here, until he gets the GOP nomination*, I suspect all of the Very Serious People will be calling on Bragg to drop the case, because reasons.
That said, I can only repeat what I said above: sometimes, a stand just has to be made, even if seems like it might not be successful. And I'll also repeat my hope that Bragg's having taken the initial plunge will bolster the courage of other prosecutors.
Finally, I don't think there is really all that much to worry about, concerning Trump gaining ammunition be getting acquitted in this case. For one thing, I'm sure the punditocracy will quickly cluster around, "I always said it was a hard case to win, and not that important anyway." For another -- and a more important one -- Trump being able to bleat about "ViCtOrY oVeR TeH LiBrUl MeDiA wItChUnT!!!1!" isn't going to move the needle for a significant fraction of voters, I don't think. Those who support him can't pull the voting levers any harder, and those who oppose him aren't going to suddenly look upon him with favor. It'll just be flood of headlines washing over a populace whose minds are already made up.
__________
* I don't think Trump has to win this case to get the GOP nomination. I think he will get it, win or lose. Unless he actually gets sent directly to jail, do not pass Go, etc. Which is not going to happen.
I haven't yet decided whether I think he will win the nomination if and when the other cases proceed as we hope they might. I guess I'm not seeing any point in thinking about these eventualities until I see some actual major next steps.
Great article. One minor quibble, the charges against Trump in his first impeachment were obstruction of Congress (not justice), but you can be forgiven due to Jerry Nadler's (deliberate?) hesitation in reading the announcement of charges, letting everyone watching mentally fill in the blank with "justice".
Which reminds me, where do bumblers like Nadler and Schiff fit in the reboot? Larry, Darryl, and Darryl?
Good catch -- thank you. Corrected. And the Nadler/Schiff characters -- much like DJ on "Roseanne/The Conners" -- will probably be part of the reboot even though nobody was big fans of them the first time.
When I was growing up the democrats were the deltas and the republicans were the omegas.
Today, the democrats are the omegas and the republicans are the deltas.
I am a conservative but I am NOT a fan of Trump. Trump needs to go away, but the left wing media refuses to let him go. Every hour of every day MSN, CBS, CNN, etc have to talk about Trump. They will not talk about Hunter Bidens laptop, the millions the Bidens have taken from China, the crisis at the boarder, the unfairness of men competing against females, or the horrible job Pres.
Biden did with Afghanistan. They just want to talk about Trump. I do think Bragg is an idiot, but mostly due to Trump derangement syndrome just like the media. Filing a frivolous indictment only makes his supporters more determined because they think he being persecuted. From all I read and hear about the things he has done, why has not one single indictment has been filed with any meat on its bones. This indictment just show how scared they are of Trump. Again, and I want him to go away.
Arrested Development season 4 is underrated, IMO. Season 5 was a dumpster fire.
Tendencies tend to revert to the mean. Old Republicans die. Things will get better.
Only slightly off topic: why on god's green earth did the West Wing writers think that creating a *new* CREEP committee was the thing that Leo McGarry should do? He could have called the committee almost literally anything else.
Just because this New York indictment was made first doesn't rule out that a verdict in a different case might happen before this one's trial is over. The Trump retained documents case is much simpler.
I'm afraid that you're a day late with the "Trump Show" meme:
https://damonlinker.substack.com/p/the-trump-show-returns
Oh no! Well, hopefully these articles can be considered companion pieces, not duplicates.
I don’t think it can be overstated how much damage the coverage of “Russia gate” did to the medias credibility in the eyes of trump die hards.
No matter what trump does. Or is accused of doing. Wolf was cried. And it was cried a lot. It was a terrible argumentative move if you’re goal is to actually ween people away from trump. The “make anything stick” brigade muddied the argumentative waters where I have actually had conversations with trump fans where I bring up the shorty things he did and all they fire back is a sarcastic.
“Just like Russia huh?”
Intimating that it’s all bullshit that’s utterly made up.
Really enjoyed this and laughed a lot.
One typo to fix: "... big, red letters, and it will be there rare instance where the network is right." You probably see it there, hint hint.
For humor value, it seems like you missed an obvious joke about the fact that the "tax fraud" issue involves mischaracterizing nontaxable expense reimbursement as taxable income, resulting in a tax payment that is way too large. This is another thing that people aren't likely to get particularly upset over.
I feel your pain! Why won't Trumpenstein die? Maybe somebody will throw holy water on him and we can all enjoy watching him wither and writhe in pain until all that's left is a pile of dirty, smoking ashes. One can dream.
He's an unfortunate genius at exploiting two defining characteristics of this age: cynicism and short attention spans. He brilliantly gives voice to a lot of people's unspoken doubts, fears, and hatreds. Then he is rewarded for it by media attention and icon status to millions. And he keeps a running blather all the while, kicking up cultural dust to obscure his personal misdeeds and confuse his opponents.
It's truly maddening to those who understand the charade. But it seems he's destined to keep going until the "conservative" voters (I'll be damned if I understand what they're trying to conserve) wake up to his con. Woke! Ha!
If the January 6th Committee hearings couldn't produce ANY meaningful lasting sound bites, with wall to wall coverage, cute Cassidy and the prospect of Trump lunging for an SS agent, what on earth does the media and assorted pundits think a state attorney general will provide? Short of burning down a church, and an Evangelical one at that, Trump will carry on and any attention to his all cap mania should literally be ignored in any/every way possible. You think you can do that? C'mon dude - you're smart, funny and there are better things to talk about.
I tend to think that the NY prosecution is more like a bad episode of a pretty good show. Like in Season Two of the Sopranos when there’s a whole dust up between Tony’s crew and Native Americans over Columbus Day. (Actually, having grown up around a lot of goombas, I personally loved this episode, but you get the point.) If nothing else, the Trump Show’s massive number of characters does something for me. Like, who will play Matt Whitticar or, for that matter, The Mooch?