President Donald Trump was the first former commander in chief to be found guilty of a murder a year ago. His guilty verdict has influenced plan in his second administration and serves as the foundation for a GOP campaign against “lawfare” to stop resumption of the case.
A New York court’s guilty verdict on all 34 misdemeanor counts of falsifying business information to cover up hush cash payments Trump reportedly made to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election, which Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg argued was in violation of campaign finance laws, provided Trump with the opportunity to plan for a second name from the courtroom amid his promises of political oppression.
According to Ronald Reagan biographer Craig Shirley, the first celebration of Trump’s judgment on May 30, 2024, will be remembered separately by “insiders and strangers.”
” The officials will state that Trump spit the hook and justice was never served, but the newcomers will say the whole thing was a scam and the officials cannot be trusted and Trump beat the crooked establishment”, Shirley told the Washington Examiner.
Republican strategist Evan Siegfried, a New York-based Republican, agreed and claimed Bragg’s criminal case supported Trump with his base and that Letitia James ‘ civil fraud lawsuit against him, as did former special counsel Jack Smith‘s investigations into the president, including the FBI‘s raid of Mar-a-Lago, as well as Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis‘s racketeering case in Georgia.
In fact, Bragg’s case was regarded as the weakest of the charges against Trump, and experts had criticized the district attorney for not showing deference to Smith before his trial became the only case to settle charges before Trump’s victory effectively ended the stand.
” Bragg, himself, he appeared to drop the case a few years earlier and then he picked it back up because he got criticism from the Left”, Siegfried told the Washington Examiner. ” I don’t believe there would have even been an indictment if the defendant or the subject of the investigation had been someone other than Donald Trump,” he said.
But he continued,” It was a huge boon to him, at the end of the day.”
For Siegfried, that was because Trump” standing up to the establishment” appealed to his supporters, who believed he would stand up for them too. The president was advantaged when it came to swing or independent voters, the strategist claimed, because” we had been litigating him and what he did or didn’t do for the four years that he had been out of office.”
Instead of beginning the conversation in January of last year, he said,” It took away a crucial attack line from [replacement 2024 Democratic nominee former vice president Kamala] Harris.”
The White House connects the actions by Bragg and New York Judge Juan Merchan, who presided over the hush money case, with present-day rulings by district court judges to thwart Trump’s executive agenda.
When President Trump was re-elected,” the American people overwhelmingly voted against lawfare and the politicization of the justice system,” according to White House spokesman Harrison Fields. The actions of the corrupt and evil judge, attorney general, and radical attorneys who attempted to put President Trump on life imprisonment “mark a dark day in history that must never be repeated,” the statement read.
” Unfortunately, radical leftist judges continue their lawfare insanity with unconstitutional nationwide injunctions and ongoing efforts to obstruct the President’s agenda, perpetuating the constitutional crisis the President endured during the campaign”, Fields added.
Public opinion polls reveal a wide range of views regarding Bragg’s case.
In contrast to 6 % of respondents who claimed it was important but claimed it was important for them to cast a ballot for him, a Politico poll conducted last year after Trump’s conviction found that about one-fifth of respondents said the guilty verdict was important for how they would vote in November’s election and that it made them less likely to support him.
Simultaneously, the same poll found that about one-third of respondents disagreed that the conviction was the result of” a fair and impartial judicial process”. Another 29 % claimed that former president Joe Biden had been “directly involved” in Bragg’s decision to bring the Trump case, whereas 36 % claimed that it was the Justice Department. Exactly 43 percent of respondents believed it was used to bolster Biden.
Regardless of public sentiment related to Bragg’s case, Trump’s feelings are well-known.
Trump delivered a speech in the DOJ’s Great Hall in March, the first time a commander in chief has done so since former President Barack Obama in 2014.
Trump said at the time,” We’re turning the page on four long years of corruption, weaponization, and surrender to violent criminals as we begin a proud new chapter in the chronicles of American justice.” ” We’re restoring fair, equal, and impartial , justice , under the constitution rule of law”.
Trump emphasized during his hour-long remarks that the 2024 election was a mandate for him to launch a “far-reaching investigation into the corruption of our system” to “expose their egregious crimes and severe misconduct” after promising to be his supporters ‘ “retribution” during the campaign.
In order to address this, Trump has ordered the Justice Department to remove any prosecutors who have charged him, along with a” special project” to look into attorneys who had handled cases involving Jan. 6 and a “weaponization working group” spearheaded by Ed Martin to look into state and federal officials who have, among other things, been looking into Trump.
Trump has issued a presidential memorandum revoking the security clearances of lawyers at the firm Covington &, Burlington who were part of Smith’s cases against Trump. He has also signed an executive order directing the same for Perkins Coie and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton &, Garrison, who represented Hillary Clinton‘s Democratic nominee for president and opposed those who are accused of crimes on January 6th, respectively.
Additionally, the executive actions mandated that any agreements between the federal government and the companies be terminated and that no employees be permitted to enter federal buildings.
Other firms targeted include Jenner &, Block and Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr for their connection to another former special counsel, Robert Mueller, as well as , Elias Law Group for its advocacy of Democratic causes, such as the Trump-Russia dossier, and Susman Godfrey for defending Dominion Voting Systems. Bragg and James are among the restricted people.
After Paul Weiss offered$ 40 million in free legal services and ended its diversity programs, Trump later revoked an order against him. One of nine companies that had entered deals with the president that totaled almost$ 1 billion in pro bono legal services, the company made a similar offer.
Perkins Coie, Jenner &, Block, Wilmer Hale, the Elias Law Group, and Susman Godfrey are challenging their actions in court.
This Order must be dissolved in its entirety as unconstitutional, according to U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon, who was speaking this week in Wilmer Hale’s case. To rule otherwise would be contrary to the words and ideas of the Founding Fathers!
Trump supporters, including former White House chief political strategist Steve Bannon and Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, have implored Trump to take his campaign against lawfare even further by appointing a special prosecutor to investigate any wrongdoing.
There is also support in Congress, including from Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC), who has been spearheading the fight against lawfare on Capitol Hill.
According to Fry, “we’ve seen rogue prosecutors use the legal system to harm Presidents, vice presidents, and public officials for political gain” in the Washington Examiner.  ,” This kind of lawfare doesn’t just hurt individuals — it undermines our democracy by deterring leaders from making challenging decisions and discouraging qualified Americans from serving in public office”.
The Promptly Ending Political Prosecutions and Executive Retaliation Act of 2025, he continued, would bring us one step closer to making sure that those who have served our country at the highest levels can move politically motivated cases away from biased state courts and to a fairer federal justice system.
However, Bud Cummins, a former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, the chairman of Trump’s 2016 campaign, a whip for the president at the Republican National Convention, and a member of his transition team that cycle, advised caution as he comes to grips with his vendetta.
” He must ensure that his personal feelings do not influence charging decisions at the DOJ”, Cummins told the Washington Examiner. Instead of focusing on individual cases, prosecution should concentrate on actual criminal offenses.
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Meanwhile, Bragg has not encountered many political consequences for his case against Trump other than having his security clearance pulled. Since his prosecution of Trump, he has attempted to distance himself from his progressive past and has instead concentrated on his” tough on crime” bona fides. He is likely to win reelection later this year after a primary in the upcoming month.
Trump was sentenced with an unconditional discharge in Bragg’s case last July. Despite the fact that it amounts to a dismissal of the matter, the president is expected to appeal that decision.
