Donald Trump is facing a state criminal trial for violating federal election laws that Alvin Bragg has no jurisdiction to enforce.
This is not apparent from last spring’s 34-count indictment, which Bragg couched as a state falsification-of-records prosecution. In the statement of facts he issued in connection with the indictment, the Manhattan district attorney also camouflaged his intentions, knowing a plainspoken admission that he was trying to enforce federal law — congressional statutes under which the responsible federal enforcement agencies had opted not to charge Trump — would ignite a firestorm. The statement of facts makes only a fleeting allusion to Trump’s involvement in a “scheme” in which participants “violated election laws” (not otherwise specified); and it conclusively alleges that the payment of hush money by Trump’s then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, was “illegal” because Cohen has “since pleaded guilty to making an illegal campaign contribution.”
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