Trump’s New York trial is a complete and utter travesty and a dangerous one as well, and even many people who don’t like Trump recognize that fact.

Here’s Turley:

“What is clear is in this case, Trump is right,” Turley told Fox News. “I mean, this is an embarrassment. I mean, the fact that we are actually talking about this case being presented in a New York courtroom leaves me in utter disbelief. I mean, the arguments today did in fact capture all the problems here. You know, you had this misdemeanor under state law that had run out. This is going back to the 2016 election. And they zapped it back into life by alleging that there was a campaign finance under federal laws that doesn’t exist.”

The word “embarrassment” is interesting, because it implies that the prosecutors are susceptible to shame about what they’re doing. They’re not. Nor are most Democrat spokespeople, as far as I can see. It’s a sobering fact and it bodes very very ill for the future of this country.

But we already knew that. And outrage is the proper emotion to feel about what is being done to Trump, to the country, and to the law.

You can also read John Hinderaker:

[Trump] is charged with filing corporate records that included a false statement; namely, that payments to Michael Cohen that were described as being for legal services were, in fact, to reimburse Cohen for making one or more payments to Stormy Daniels in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement. But those payments to Daniels were perfectly legal, and filing a false corporate document is a misdemeanor on which the statute of limitation has passed.

So in order to charge Trump, District Attorney Alvin Bragg had to allege that the false documents were filed in order to cover up another crime. That would make it a felony. But what is that other crime? Bragg has been coy about it. In truth, there was no other crime, and Bragg’s prosecution is election interference on behalf of the Democratic Party, plain and simple.

Here’s what Bragg says about the other crime:

Still unclear, if confidently stated. pic.twitter.com/J1vmQgTlFB

— Byron York (@ByronYork) April 24, 2024

In other words, doing what all candidates do all the time? That’s an “illegal conspiracy to undermine the integrity of a presidential election”? Trying to keep skeletons – or even allegations of skeletons, whether true or not – in the closet? That crime? Like what the entire MSM, social media, the intelligence community, and the Democrats did regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop in 2020? Or changing the election rules so that fraud couldn’t be proven even if it occurred? Those sorts of crimes?

Or the crime of Bragg’s prosecution itself, which also is a conspiracy to undermine the integrity of a political election? As though the left cares about the integrity of elections.

It is to weep.

And by the way, the Bragg charges remind me quite strongly of the lawfare the Israeli left practiced against Netanyahu (written by Caroline Glick in 2022):

Netanyahu is standing trial for bribery and breach of trust. The “breach of trust” charge is a subjective catch-all concept that the prosecutors admit wouldn’t have sufficed on its own to bring Netanyahu to trial. The bribery charge was the key to Netanyahu’s political downfall. …

To achieve their political goal, the police descended on Netanyahu’s advisers one by one, and gave them the treatment generally reserved for terrorists and violent criminals. They were dragged from their beds at dawn, in front of their families, and carted off to investigation rooms and flea-ridden jail cells. They were denied food. They were subjected to public humiliation in the media. Their electronic communications were illegally tapped. Their families were threatened. Their livelihoods were destroyed.

And the police didn’t let them go until they gave them something—anything—to incriminate the prime minister of Israel.

Since Netanyahu had committed no crime, then-Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit and State Attorney Shai Nitzan reinvented the bribery statute to claim that lawful actions Netanyahu did undertake were criminal.

Like every politician on the face of the planet, Netanyahu sought positive coverage from news organizations. The prosecution decided that this effort amounted to a solicitation of a bribe. Netanyahu signed regulatory decisions that affected a telecommunications firm owned by his friend. The prosecution decided this was a favor—a payment for positive coverage from his friend’s news website. Unfortunately for the prosecution, Netanyahu received terrible coverage from the website. But no matter, the prosecutors simply updated the definition of bribery. They said Netanyahu received “undo responsiveness” from the website’s management to his requests for better coverage, and that was now the definition of a bribe.

Does that not sound familiar?

I’ve noticed over and over again that most people have little to no understanding of law, and that includes most intelligent people. That’s why prosecutors can get away with this horse manure in friendly (in this case, anti-Trump) venues – that, and the fact that emotion often overrides logic for the vast majority of people, who tend to see a prosecution as an excellent way to hurt a person they dislike, which makes any method okay. The ends justify the means, and all that.

Is it time for that Man For All Seasons clip again? I guess so:

And in addition, neither Trump nor Netanyahu is the devil; far from it.

ADDENDUM:

More here, including quotes from Andrew C. McCarthy’s article at NR (the article itself is behind a paywall).