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Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
That's immaterial. Selective treatment is selective treatment regardless of grade or character of enforcement.
But not with a prosecutor?
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Yes, with a prosecutor, I just think it's pretty uncommon.
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We needn't examine that in much detail. Bragg brought this case for political reasons, and no amount of dissembling gets around that fact.
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That's not a fact. It's an opinion that you keep repeating, with basing the facts which led you to it. What facts are those? I would like to know, in part because I can't figure out what you mean by "political."
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Right. That's why I didn't say any of that and its use here is either a strawman or a red herring.
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Great. So we agree that there is a form of prosecutorial abuse which you don't think was involved in Bragg's prosecution of Trump. I'm still trying to figure what you did think was abusive about it.
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Exactly the justification cops have used on minorities for decades. "Well, he was guilty of something."
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No, that's not the same at all. Trump was found guilty on the exact charges for which he was indicted. Not, "he was guilty of something." Rather, he was guilty of the exact thing he was charged with, and he had no defense.
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The prosecution was such a stretch Bragg was unable to locate a state level predicate act and had to use a novel theory involving an alleged violation of federal campaign law (similar to one which Smith used against John Edwards and the jury rejected, btw) to create a felony. Knowing the full time it was likely whatever conviction he got would betaken apart on appeal. But who cares about that? The aim was always a conviction before the election.
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Given that the charges had to do with funneling hush-money payments around a federal election, why is it any surprise that the predicate act would involve federal campaign law?
You seem to think it was unethical for Bragg to advance a legal theory you disagree with, as if there weren't courts involved making legal rulings.
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He got a fair trial in a completely unfair forum. The law is poorly written and so was perversely exploited in Rube Goldberg fashion by Bragg, and Trump was tried in a city where voters liked Bragg's and Laetitia James' campaign promises to "get Trump." You don't see how this is a loaded deck?
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None of that makes it an unfair forum.
And quote to me what you think Bragg actually said. Find me where he said "get Trump." I think he didn't, and you are out over your skis with those quotation marks.
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Administering the trial fairly in such circumstance is akin to fairly administering a lethal injection where a witness has recanted. "Hey, it was fairly administered."
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This is such horseshit. I'm sorry, but you can do much better.
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Huh? What Trump didn't was not even of consequence enough to for the FEC to levy a fine! Bragg's decision converted what would never have been a crime (indeed as a misdemeanor its statute of lims had passed) into a crime. If you have to be as creative as Bragg was in this case, it's a case you have no ethical basis to bring.
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The FEC routinely fails to enforce law, for reasons that are no secret.
Again, one difference here is that I have been told by NY prosecutors that Bragg's legal theory was not creative or unprecedented, and your views are shaped by, well, other stuff.
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Right, well, at least we're in agreement on that. We only differ in that you seem to be bent a bit - willing to defend that which is more than a bit sleazy and obviously political. Why I've no idea.
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Because I have not seen actually factual basis for the suggestion that Bragg was "sleazy" or "political," and certainly not from you.
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We cannot have people like James and Bragg running for DA or State Atty Gen on a platform of "I'm going to get our political opponents!" That is banana republic behavior.
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Facts, please. What did Bragg say?
