Why Alvin Bragg’s Indictment of Trump is Defective

According to NLPC Counsel Paul Kamenar:

The ostensible “crime” is that the payments to two women in 2016 arranged by Trump attorney Michael Cohen, both of whom signed a Nondisclosure Agreement (NDA), which is totally legal, were allegedly misreported as legal fees, normally a minor misdemeanor with a two-year statute of limitations, which has long expired.

In order to bootstrap that paperwork offense into a felony, the indictment alleges related state tax violations and that the payments were in effect an in-kind campaign contribution, a federal offense. That campaign charge is defective for a number of reasons:

1) The felony statute has a five-year statute of limitations which has also expired.

2) The theory that this was a federal campaign contribution is not only outside the jurisdiction of the local New York authorities, but also both the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and the U.S. Department of Justice, which has jurisdiction over any such offense, have declined to bring any such campaign charges, for good reason: the payment was for personal reasons to avoid embarrassment to Trump’s family irrespective of the campaign.

3) The Justice Department brought similar charges against former Democratic Senator John Edwards who received $900,000 from a major donor to pay off his mistress and love child while Edwards was still married in 2011. The jury acquitted Edwards on one count and was hung on the other four charges. The Justice Department wisely declined to retry Edwards. Here, Trump repaid Cohen with his personal funds and hence, there was no chance of an outside donor influencing an election.

4) The fact that Michael Cohen, former Trump lawyer, pled guilty in 2018 to a campaign violation does not mean that it was a crime but was a result of Cohen being pressured to plead guilty to get a lighter sentence.

5) Finally, even if the payments were illegal campaign in-kind contributions, FEC rules require that the campaign repay the source of the contribution with campaign funds, which Trump could have done but did not do. If he had used campaign funds, he would have been charged with misusing campaign funds for personal purposes in a Catch-22. Instead, he repaid the payments with his personal funds. No one was defrauded.

Click here for Paul’s April 6, 2022 letter that appeared in the Wall Street Journal.

Click here for Paul’s April 9, 2022 interview on Epoch TV with Larry Elder.