Nothing to Bragg About
Conspiracy Friday: Let's Play Connect the Dots!
In case you don’t know what on earth is going on with Alvin Bragg’s trial of Donald J. Trump in Manhattan, join the club. It includes Harvard professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz, former President Donald Trump, Harvard law graduate and podcaster Ben Shapiro, and just about every clear-thinking political and legal mind in the country. As Bragg practices election interference against the alleged crime of election interference (Pot, meet Kettle), a short and overly simple review will get you up to speed.
The trial is premised on the idea that Trump paid a porn star Stormy Daniels hush money to deny that they had an affair and that this payment of $130,000 amounted to a “campaign donation” because it helped his election, but… and here’s the crime … the amount was coded in the campaign bookkeeping as a “legal fee” rather than a “campaign donation.” Was the payment a legal fee? I think one could make that argument, but Bragg says it was a campaign donation, allowing him to charge Trump with the felony crime of “falsification of business records.”
Stormy Daniels has already signed a letter (which she has authenticated) stating that the alleged affair never took place. She has also since said that she did have an affair with Trump but she signed the letter under duress. Here is the letter.
While it may be sketchy and even sleazy to have affairs with porn stars, it is not illegal—and there is documentation that this “affair” never happened. True, Stormy is now disputing this, but it’s kind of hard to walk back a signed statement.
It is not illegal to pay someone to sign a nondisclosure agreement (“hush money”). Bill Clinton openly settled a sexual harassment lawsuit against Paula Jones for $850,000, and nobody arrested him. Besides, if paying so-called hush money to silence people accusing others of misconduct was illegal, we would have to arrest Congress. They maintain a slush fund (of taxpayer money) to settle these pesky allegations quietly in exchange for nondisclosure agreements. It’s exactly what Bragg says that Trump did, except Trump paid his own bill. Congress makes taxpayers pay it (and, by the way, Congress refuses to disclose how that money is spent; we don’t know whose dirty deeds we are paying for!) It’s been running for 23 years now and has so far paid out $18M of our money.
The story gets even stupider. Apparently, Trump did not handle this payment at all. As you might expect, billionaire businessmen who run multiple companies and campaign for President do not stay up at night and do their own bookkeeping. Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen handled that sort of thing. Michael Cohen knew about Stormy Daniels and some have even alleged he knew her socially (no comment). In 2016, Michael Cohen paid $130,000 to Daniels for a nondisclosure agreement that she would not “tell all” about her alleged affair with Trump way back in 2006. (Remember, she subsequently denied such an affair even happened). The payment was made through a shell corporation under Cohen’s control and is often described as having been paid by Cohen personally. It was certainly paid by Cohen’s personal funds and he asked for—and received—reimbursement from the Trump Organization.
Michael Cohen was reimbursed by the Trump Organization, who accounted for the payment as a legal fee. You can sort of understand how this might happen, seeing as they were reimbursing Trump’s personal attorney. The Trump Organization paid Cohen back in monthly installments of $35,000 over the course of 2017. Thus, the Trump Organization paid a lawyer and accounted for it as “legal fees” and in the fever-dream world of Alvin Bragg, that is a felony that demands the incarceration of Donald Trump.
One bone of contention here is that Michael Cohen said he paid Stormy Daniels at the direction of Trump and that Trump knew the plan in October 2016 (before the election). Cohen—who has subsequently been disbarred and has been in and out of prison—said Trump knew about the payment and wanted Cohen to pay Stormy off quietly and from his own money to avoid a paper trail. Trump not only denied that, he said he never knew that Cohen had paid Stormy, much less authorized it. Trump argues that he would not have paid her hush money in the first place, and to me, that sounds like Trump, who is not known for paying off every person who ever held their hand out. Besides, what did Trump care if some porn star accused him of having an affair with her? People say worse things about Trump than that on a daily basis.
Trump maintains that the monthly payments to Cohen were part of a retainer which for the various legal services provided by Cohen.
The case against Trump is that the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels was a campaign donation (it allegedly benefited Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign) and it was booked in his records as “legal fees,” making Trump allegedly guilty of the falsification of business records. It is true that campaign finance laws are very strict, but campaigns are frenzied multimillion-dollar projects and I cannot believe that an accounting error would be regarded as so egregious that it warrants bringing criminal charges against a former president and current presidential candidate. Besides, I don’t think it was a campaign donation. Paying Stormy did not help Trump’s campaign, particularly since the payola was made as the campaign was winding down. And let’s face it: the accusation that Trump may have been cavorting with disreputable women years before the campaign—in 2006 and 2011—is hardly shocking.
The hush money and accounting controversy happened in 2017. That’s seven long years ago. So why suddenly does this have to be tried? Well, the answer is that holding a high-visibility trial like this in New York right now is a pretty good way to get bad optics for Trump, to cast him in a poor light, to smear his reputation, to waste his time, and maybe even send him to prison. There’s a lot wrong with this trial.
“Hush money” is not illegal. It’s been elevated to a taxpayer-funded program in Congress.
Stormy Daniels said in writing and on the record that no affair took place. She has since recanted, but it is hard to overcome a written statement like that. (Were you lying then, or are you lying now?)
Michael Cohen said Trump authorized him to pay Stormy out of his private funds but Trump denies this. In fact, Trump denies even knowing that Stormy received a payment of any kind.
The accounting error that booked this as a legal fee rather than a campaign donation was made by Michael Cohen who, ironically, is Bragg’s witness for saying Trump committed the crime.
Judge Juan Merchan did not recuse himself despite strong and open Democrat political affiliations, his daughter’s political activities, and his alleged personal animus against Trump.
The judge’s daughter is Loren Merchan, a Democrat activist who served as the director of “digital persuasion” for Kamala Harris in her 2020 campaign. The New York Post says that Loren Merchan’s political consulting firm, Authentic Campaigns, is currently fundraising off the attack on President Trump. Authentic Campaigns has already made $93M off the trial, and keeping the trial going as long as possible may help her rake in even more money. One of her biggest clients is Adam Schiff.
Her father, Judge Juan Merchan, has imposed on Trump an illegal and unconstitutional gag order. Normally, due process allows a defendant to speak in his own defense. The prosecution has no such gag order, defeating due process entirely.
Trump’s request to change the venue of the trial was rejected even though it was reasonable and could be used as grounds to overturn the verdict. They don’t care about the ultimate outcome—they just need to stop Trump now.
This is election interference, pure and simple. It’s so obvious Stevie Wonder could see it. And ironically, Bragg’s army is charging Trump with election interference when this trial is itself election interference.
By the way, Alvin Bragg is one wealthy man himself. Born in modest circumstances in Harlem, he entered public service as an attorney who rose to the office of Manhattan DA. As far as I can tell, Bragg never worked outside of public service, never started a business, never invented anything, never wrote a book, and is not some wizard of Wall Street investor. Yet his net worth is $41M off a $210,000 annual salary, which is a tremendous achievement for a 50-year-old public servant. I was unable to find how he amassed that kind of money.
So that brings me to my tinfoil hat. Why go through all this kangaroo court stuff? This case will be overturned on appeal. Even if all you know about the law is what you learned from watching Law & Order re-runs, you and I could get this case overturned. In a city overrun with criminals, where sucker punching old ladies on the street is not considered an arrestable offense—why devote millions upon millions to this show trial, trying to imprison a former president for a clerical error?
(Seriously, if they made a movie about this trial—would anyone believe it?)
I maintain that if Trump had decided to retire in 2021 and go back to his old life of running a real estate empire and playing golf or had he decided to re-invent himself by launching a Conservative think tank or creating a new TV news network—none of this would be happening now. Trump is not on trial because of what he did or didn’t do with Stormy Daniels. He’s not on trial because of an accountant’s error. He’s on trial because he might get back in the White House.
So put on your tinfoil hat, we’re going down a rabbit hole. This is all speculation. But when you live in an Empire of Lies, sometimes logic and connecting-the-dots are all you have.
On August 8, 2022, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) executed a search warrant on Mar-a-Lago. They arrived without notice, would not allow any family members or staff or even Trump’s attorneys to be present, and they turned the place upside down. This wasn’t a little matter: there were 32 people who invaded Mar-a-Lago, including 25 FBI agents. Some had weapons and live ammo. They arrived at one minute to 9:00 a.m. and did not leave until 11:20 a.m. according to official documents. However, a National Public Radio interview said that the search took 10 hours.
According to Trump, the raid was a total surprise.
Donald Trump had in his possession documents from his Presidential days and since a President can declassify any document at will, he was under the impression that these were not classified documents. Many of these papers were things like personal correspondence and souvenirs of his days in the White House. And just to be fair, all Presidents take personal papers and other documents with them when they leave office—Biden, who was just a Senator and later Vice President at the time—took home far more documents than Trump has in his possession and he not only had no authority to declassify them, he actually had to steal them from the government to bring them out of their special storage. Obama took personal papers; so did Bill Clinton. This is as common in Washington as stealing a pen or a glass from Air Force One.
The government, in particular the National Archives, knew that Trump had presidential papers in his personal possession. Trump maintained that he was in contact with various authorities about the documents, which were stored safely in his house under round-the-clock Secret Service protection. Trump claimed to be cooperative in discussions about returning some of these papers, but we have to realize that Trump’s definition of “cooperative” may differ from that of his opponents. Trump was discussing the documents but, let’s face it, Trump negotiates for sport and his favorite exercise is pushing back. But Trump was talking with various entities that wanted the papers and he had already replaced a lock on a storage cabinet at their request. The lines of communication were open, even if Trump did not always jump when they called.
Just a couple of days ago, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, released an interesting document. It’s a timeline of the Trump document raid and a related FBI file called “Plasmic Echo.” (Judge Cannon is releasing lots of stuff, follow her in the news if you can—some of the documents she’s sharing with the public are explosive.) Click the link and scroll down to the Scribd insert to see the document itself.
What’s Plasmic Echo? It’s the plan to get into Mar-A-Lago for the big document hunt. The FBI had a search warrant—which is not only unprecedented for a former President to be treated this way, it was likely unnecessary. Trump was cooperating. Plus a search warrant likely meant that FBI director Christopher Wray signed off on the search, which meant he knew about it and approved it. Trump likely would have allowed the FBI on his premises if he had been asked. Of course, he’d probably want arrangements made so that his lawyers could be present. The FBI clearly did not welcome that idea.
So certain questions arise:
What exactly was the FBI looking for and why didn’t they just ask for it? This information has never been made public. Might as well look for the Ark of the Covenant or the Epstein client list.
Why did the FBI have to serve a search warrant and do a surprise raid with more than two dozen agents? Why did they need armed officers? What did they expect was going to happen?
What did they find? All that drama and taxpayer money and we’re just told they hauled off “15 boxes.”
Why did they not allow the search to be witnessed by Trump and/or his lawyers or other representatives? They had a search warrant; a lawyer could not have stopped the search. So why couldn’t the search be observed?
Why did the FBI search Melania Trump’s closet and personal effects? Most search warrants are specific about the areas to be searched and they must be logical with respect to what was being sought. Did the FBI really think Trump was hiding secret documents in Melania’s lingerie drawer?
Why did they seize Trump’s passport? (It was returned a few days later, but it seems a strange thing to seize).
Trump maintained (and the FBI denied) that they searched Barron’s room, too, and Trump said that they left the room in disarray.
The FBI was making noise that Trump may get charged with espionage. Why would they say something like that? Why have they made such bold statements but then gone silent?
Hold on to your tinfoil hat. The raid is nearly two years in the past. Why do we still not know what was found? What were they looking for?
What if … they weren’t actually looking FOR a document. If they wanted a specific document or report, it would have been easier and much more conventional to ask for it. They did not do that. And the documents they did find appear to be so mundane and boring, they’re embarrassed to tell us what they are. In fact, Operation Plasmic Echo never stated what specifically they were looking for. Here is a plan to conduct a major search with dozens of federal agents and weapons and search warrants—but there is no mention of what they are searching for.
Sounds hinky. Two things came to mind.
What if they wanted to raid Mar-A-Lago to plant incriminating evidence against Trump? Hypothetically speaking, what if the purpose of the raid was not to find stuff but to leave stuff? We all know that law enforcement can plant evidence. Most of us have seen enough of our government in action to know that they are not above this. Movies show us this technique all of the time. It would explain why there was no request for documents but rather a surprise search which demanded that Trump and attorneys not be present. They needed to work without anyone watching.
While I think that is plausible… let’s connect a few more hypothetical dots.
What if they were looking for specific documents that were not exactly presidential papers but would incriminate someone else? Let’s just say that, hypothetically, Barack Obama did some illegal things while in office and let’s say, hypothetically, that Trump had gathered up some evidence against him. We know Obama spied on Trump, but they have enough proof about Crossfire Hurricane to go after the bad guys without digging around in Melania’s underwear drawer. What if it was something else? Maybe it was about regime change in Libya (Benghazi) or Obama’s interest in provoking conflict with North Korea? Maybe Trump found out a bit more than we know about those pallets of cash to Iran. Maybe Trump had Barack Obama’s original birth certificate that would have disqualified him from office? I mean that hypothetically, of course. In other words, let’s say that Barack Obama, his surrogate Joe Biden, and the FBI all came to the conclusion that Trump, hypothetically, had documents in his possession that could put Obama’s legacy and the Democrat regime in jeopardy.
If this were the case—and remember, this is just idle speculation—it would be very important to never let Trump get back anywhere near the levers of power. In other words, those dangerous papers pose no threat to the regime as long as they remain in the hands of a private and thoroughly discredited citizen. But if they were ever in the hands of a President, well, things might get messy.
So my totally hypothetical scenario is that the Mar-A-Lago raid was about trying to find stuff the FBI is guessing Trump had that could hurt the Democrats and since they were unable to find it, they had to prosecute Trump via lawfare to keep him out of office. These two strange and unprecedented events go together: serving a search warrant on a former president and then dragging him to court on criminal charges of falsifying a business record. Those two things don’t seem normal to me, and that suggests they’re connected. One odd event is an odd event. Two sequential odd events is a plot.
Columbo, the iconic TV detective, once said that whenever a person does something out of the ordinary—that’s important to study. It’s a clue. And here we have two back-to-back clues. I’m just drawing a line between them.
Therefore, it doesn’t matter if Bragg’s case is a bunch of stupid ideas held together by spit, a clothes pin, and duct tape. It doesn’t matter if E. Jean Carroll lied on the stand. It doesn’t matter how many married men Fani Willis puts on retainer to vacation with her. These cases will not stand … but that is not the point. The point is not to win the case, the point is to keep Trump from campaigning, to smear his reputation, and to drain his financial resources. It’s lawfare and it is done to punish and demoralize Trump and his supporters. In the end, it won’t matter if every case against Trump gets overturned; all that matters to the Democrats is keeping him out of office. Trump is an old man and if he does not win the next election, it is unlikely he would consider a 2028 run. So all the Democrats have to do is keep him out of the White House one last time.
So you have to ask why? Why the frenzy to make sure Trump never gets in power again? It can’t be because he’ll lower taxes on the middle class or impose trade tariffs on China. It is not even about immigration or Middle Eastern politics. Those are distractions. Democrats could live with a wall and they’ll soldier on a few more years without a wealth tax. What they can’t live with is being ousted from power. Powerful people fear disgrace more than any other loss. Trump may very well have something on the Democrats … and it is something that scares them.
I speculate that it is something BIG. Hypothetically speaking, of course.
Concluding, hypothetically of course, I believe the regime thought that Trump was keeping his big secret among his various papers from his White House days. I think this is misguided. Don’t you think a guy with a billion-dollar global real estate empire, a lot of friends, and a sharp mind could figure out a better place to hide these papers than in Barron’s room? If there is a kill switch on these documents, it may explain why Trump seems at times almost supernaturally protected. Of course, I’m not ruling out supernatural protection, either.