• How does Israel expect to have a proper supreme court without any Catholics?
• As we go to press, the Manhattan grand jury has not indicted Donald Trump over hush-money payments to Stephanie Clifford (whose nom de pornographie is “Stormy Daniels”). District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a progressive Democrat elected to his position on a platform of not enforcing the law generally but aggressively using it against Trump, obviously has misgivings about the case. He shut it down a year ago but revived it when senior prosecutors embarrassed him by quitting in a huff over his mothballing of the matter. Bragg has good reason to hesitate. Falsifying business records (here, accounting for the reimbursement of Michael Cohen, who laid out $130,000 to keep Daniels quiet about an alleged liaison with Trump) is a misdemeanor. The politicization is patent because Bragg would never charge anyone but Trump with so trifling an offense. To make it a felony, moreover, he needs to claim Trump cooked the books to hide a federal campaign-finance violation. The evidence of an in-kind campaign contribution is dubious, though, and Bragg lacks jurisdiction to enforce federal law. If Trump is to be charged, there are far more serious federal and state investigations involving January 6 and the retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Bragg should stand down.
Comments