Alvin Bragg’s ‘Election Interference’ Narrative Is Nonsensical

Published

1 year ago

April 19, 2024

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A year after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced 34 felony charges against Donald Trump, the former president’s trial is about to begin. Yet people are still arguing about how to describe the case. This debate is not merely rhetorical. It reflects the disconnect between the counts that Trump faces, all of which allege falsification of business records, and the essence of his crime as Bragg sees it, which is hiding negative information from voters.

“Although it has long been referred to as the ‘hush money’ case,” says CNN legal analyst Norman Eisen, “that is wrong. We should call it an ‘election interference’ trial going forward.”

The reason people call it a “hush money case,” of course, is that it would not exist but for the $130,000 that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen paid porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 presidential election to keep her from talking about her alleged affair with Trump. But Eisen, who served as co-counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Trump’s first impeachment, joins Bragg in arguing that the significance of the case transcends those tawdry details.

“We allege falsification of business records to the end of keeping information away from the electorate,” Bragg said in a January interview with NY1. “It’s an election interference case.” That sounds important, and it calls to mind the federal charges based on Trump’s audacious attempts to remain in office after he lost the 2020 presidential election. But this characterization, which Bragg started emphasizing after Special Counsel Jack Smith unveiled the federal indictment last August, is hard to take seriously.

“As this office has done time and time again, we today uphold our solemn responsibility to ensure that everyone stands equal before the law,” Bragg said when he announced the New York indictment in April 2023. “No amount of money and no amount of power changes that enduring principle.” Underlining that point, Bragg added: “These are felony crimes in New York. No matter who you are. We cannot normalize serious criminal conduct.”

Bragg was on firm ground in arguing that felonies are felonies. But why was this “serious criminal conduct”? Bragg’s explanation was underwhelming: “True and accurate business records are important everywhere, to be sure. They are all the more important in Manhattan, the financial center of the world.”

In addition to that eye-glazing gloss, Bragg presented the seed of his “election interference” argument. “We allege Donald Trump and his associates repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal damaging information and unlawful activity from American voters,” he said.

Mary McCord, executive director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown University Law Center, echoes that take in a recent New York Times discussion of the case. “The falsification of business records seems rock-solid based on the documentary evidence,” she says. “The question for the jurors will be Trump’s knowledge and intent.” McCord thinks “it’s a very winnable case for the D.A.” because prosecutors “will give the jurors plenty of evidence” that Trump’s motive in falsifying business records was “to prevent information damaging to candidate Trump from becoming public just weeks before the 2016 election.”

If you read the indictmentand the accompanying statement of facts, you will notice a glaring chronological problem with that account: The criminal conduct that Bragg alleges all happened after the 2016 election. Since Trump was already president, ensuring that outcome could not have been his motive.

Beginning in February 2017, the indictment says, Trump reimbursed Cohen for the hush money with a series of checks, which he disguised as payment for legal services. The indictment counts each of those checks, along with each of the corresponding invoices and ledger entries, as a distinct violation of a state law that makes falsification of business records “with intent to defraud” a misdemeanor.

Since all of this happenedafter Trump was elected, it is clearly not true that the allegedly phony records “conceal[ed] damaging information…from American voters” in 2016 or that the “falsification of business records” was aimed at “keeping information away from the electorate,” thereby helping Trump defeat Hillary Clinton. Eisen concedes this temporal difficulty:

Election interference skepticscontend the charges here are fordocument falsification by the Trump organization in 2017,afterthe 2016 election concluded, to hide what happened the year before from being revealed. How can we call this an election interference trial,they ask, if the election was already over when the 34 alleged document falsification crimes occurred?

Those skeptics, Eisen says, overlook the fact that “the payment to Daniels was itself allegedly illegal under federal and state law” and “was plainly intended to influence the 2016 election.” Although Cohen “was limited by law to $2,700 in contributions to the campaign,” Eisen writes, “hetransferred $130,000 to benefit the campaign, allegedly atTrump’s direction. That is why Cohen pleaded guilty to federal campaign finance violations (in addition to other offenses), for which he was incarcerated. And no one can seriously dispute that the reason he and Trump allegedly hatched the scheme was to deprive voters of information that could have changed the outcome of an extremely close election.”

Eisen glosses over the difficulty of distinguishing between personal and campaign expenditures in this context, which is crucial in proving a violation of federal campaign finance regulations. That difficulty helps explain why the Justice Department never prosecuted Trump for allegedly directing Cohen to make an excessive campaign contribution. Contrary to what Eisen says, there is a serious dispute about whether Trump “knowingly and willfully” violated federal election law.

In any case, it is too late to prosecute that alleged crime. And even if it weren’t, Bragg would have no authority to enforce federal law.

Falsification of business records can be treated as a felony only if the defendant’s “intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.” Bragg has mentioned a violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act as one possible candidate for “another crime.” But it is plausible that Trump did not think paying off Daniels was illegal. If so, it is hard to see how his falsification of business records could have been aimed at concealing “another crime,” even assuming that phrase includes violations of federal law, which also is not clear.

The legality of the hush payment is uncertain because it turns on whether Trump was trying to promote his election or trying to avoid personal embarrassment and spare his wife’s feelings. The same ambiguity poses a challenge for Bragg in trying to convict Trump of felonies rather than misdemeanors: Did he falsify business records to cover up another crime or simply to keep his wife in the dark?

As Braggsees it, Trump “corrupt[ed] a presidential election” by hiding information that voters might have deemed relevant in choosing between him and Clinton. But there is nothing inherently illegal about that: If Trump had persuaded Daniels to keep her mouth shut simply by asking nicely, the result would have been the same. Bragg’s “election interference” narrative, insofar as it makes legal sense at all, requires showing that Trump not only tried to prevent a scandal but committed one or more crimes toward that end.

“People want the hush money case to be the big case that can take down Trump because it may be the onlyone that goes to trialbefore the election,” UCLA election law expert Richard Hasen, one of the “skeptics” to whom Eisen alludes, writes in the Los Angeles Times. But “the charges are so minor I don’t expect they will shake up the presidential race.”

Hasen rejects Bragg’s “election interference” framing. “Failing to report a campaign payment is a small potatoes campaign-finance crime,” he says. “Willfully not reporting expenes to cover up an affair isn’t ‘interfering’ with an election along the lines of trying to get a secretary of state to falsify vote totals, or trying to get a state legislature to falsely declare there was fraud in the state and submit alternative slates of electors. We can draw a fairly bright line between attempting to change vote totals to flip a presidential election and failing to disclose embarrassing information on a government form.”

Although “I certainly understand the impulse of Trump opponents to label this case as one of election interference,” Hasen adds, “any voters who look beneath the surface are sure to be underwhelmed. Calling it election interference actually cheapens the term and undermines the deadly serious charges in the real election interference cases.”

Entertainment

Lady Gaga puts on her biggest-ever show for free on Rio’s Copacabana Beach

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1 hour ago

May 4, 2025

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Lady Gaga puts on her biggest-ever show for free on Rio's Copacabana Beach

Lady Gaga has performed in front of an estimated 2.1 million people at a free show on Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach.

Some 500,000 tourists travelled to watch the concert, which was paid for by the city in an attempt to boost the struggling economy.

Saturday night’s two-hour show, which marked Gaga’s biggest ever, marked the first time she had played in Brazil since 2012, having cancelled an appearance at the Rock in Rio festival in 2017 over health issues.

Gaga, who released her seventh studio album, Mayhem, in March, opened with a dramatic, operatic edition of her 2011 track Bloody Mary, before launching into Abracadabra, one of her most recent hits.

“Brazil! I missed you. I missed you so much,” she exclaimed, before launching into Poker Face, one of her biggest hits.

The American pop star drew in a similar crowd to Madonna’s in May last year, who performed at the same beach, which is transformed into an enormous dance floor for the shows.

Addressing the crowd in English and through a Portuguese translator, Gaga became emotional as she said: “I’m so honoured to be here with you tonight.

“Tonight we’re making history, but no one makes history alone. Without all of you, the incredible people of Brazil, I wouldn’t have this moment. Thank you for making history with me.

“The people of Brazil are the reason I get to shine today. But of all the things I can thank you for, the one I most am grateful for is this: that you waited for me. You waited more than 10 years for me.”

She said it took so long to come back because she was “healing” and “getting stronger”. The pop sensation cancelled many of her shows in 2017 and 2018 due to her fibromyalgia condition, which can cause pain and fatigue.

It is estimated Gaga’s show will have injected around 600 million reais (£79.9m) into the economy, nearly 30% more than Madonna’s show.

The large-scale free shows are set to continue annually until at least 2028, always taking place in May, which is considered the economy’s “low season”, according to the city’s government.

A hefty security plan was in place, including the presence of 3,300 military and 1,500 police officers, along with 400 military firefighters.

‘A dream come true’

The city has been swarmed with Gaga fans since her arrival on Tuesday, with some even keeping vigil outside of the hotel she has been staying at.

Many arrived at the beach at the crack of dawn on Saturday to secure good spots on the beach, despite the show not starting until 9.45pm.

Ana Lara Folador, who attended with her sister, said it was “a dream come true”, and that Gaga had “really shaped a part of my personality, as a person and an artist”.

Ingrid Serrano, a 30-year-old engineer who made a cross-continent trip from Colombia to Brazil to attend the show, turned up in a T-shirt featuring Lady Gaga’s outlandish costumes over the years.

“I’ve been a 100% fan of Lady Gaga my whole life,” she said, adding the 39-year-old megastar represented “total freedom of expression – being who one wants without shame”.

Matheus Silvestroni, 25, an aspiring DJ and a Gaga fan since the age of 12, endured an eight-hour bus ride from Sao Paulo for the show.

He said it was Gaga who had inspired him to embrace his sexuality and pursue his dream of becoming an artist.

“I was bullied because I was a fat, gay kid, so I was an easy target,” he said. “Gaga was very important because she sent a message that everything was okay with me, I wasn’t a freak, because I was ‘Born This Way’.”

Rio is known for holding massive open-air concerts, with Rod Stewart holding a Guinness World Record for the four million-strong crowd he drew to Copacabana Beach in 1994.

Politics

Conservatives call for Labour’s Lucy Powell to resign over grooming gang remarks

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1 hour ago

May 4, 2025

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Conservatives call for Labour's Lucy Powell to resign over grooming gang remarks

The Conservatives are calling for Lucy Powell to resign after the Labour MP’s exchange with a commentator about grooming gangs.

The comment was made by Ms Powell, the leader of the House of Commons, after Conservative political commentator Tim Montgomerie started to ask a question on BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions.

“I don’t know if you saw the documentary on Channel 4 about rape gangs,” he started, in relation to the recent programme Groomed: A National Scandal, which centred around five girls who were sexually abused by rape gangs.

Ms Powell, who is MP for Manchester Central, responded: “Oh, we want to blow that little trumpet now, do we? Yeah, OK, let’s get that dog whistle out.”

Sir Keir Starmer and the government have been under sustained pressure from political opponents over the handling of historical sex abuse cases in the UK.

ConservativeHome founder Mr Montgomerie, who will be appearing on Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips, continued: “There is a real issue where… There were so many people in local government, in the authorities, who, for good reason, were worried about upsetting community tensions, that those girls went undefended.”

The conversation moved on, but politicians criticised Ms Powell’s comment, with some calling for her to resign.

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said in a statement: “This shocking outburst from a Labour cabinet minister belittles the thousands of girls and women who were raped by grooming gangs over decades.

“We have consistently called for a national enquiry in parliament, which has been blocked by Labour ministers who don’t seem to know or care about the disgusting crimes which have been perpetrated.

“Anyone who has seen the shocking Channel 4 documentary will know that it is clearer than ever that this is not a ‘dog whistle’.

“To dismiss thousands of victims who were raped and the cover up that followed is sickening. She should resign.”

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Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick said: “Labour’s Lucy Powell thinks it’s a ‘dog whistle’ to demand arrests and accountability for the rape gangs. What a disgusting betrayal of the victims. They are part of the cover-up.”

Ousted Reform MP Rupert Lowe, now an independent, shared a letter he wrote to Ms Powell demanding she apologise, calling her comments “deeply, deeply offensive”.

On X on Saturday night, Ms Powell said: “In the heat of a discussion on AQ, I would like to clarify that I regard issues of child exploitation and grooming with the utmost seriousness. I’m sorry if this was unclear.

“I was challenging the political point scoring around it, not the issue itself. As a constituency MP I’ve dealt with horrendous cases. This Gvt is acting to get to the truth, and deliver justice.”

Sky News has contacted the office for the Leader of the House of Commons for comment.

The long-running row over grooming cases has continued after Labour promised five local inquiries into grooming gangs in January.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk had accused Sir Keir of being “complicit” in the failure of authorities to protect victims and prosecute abusers while the PM was director of public prosecutions from 2008-2013.

The prime minister has repeatedly defended his record, saying it shows he tackled the issue head-on.

World

Israeli pilots’ protest letter reveals deepening rift over ongoing war in Gaza

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1 hour ago

May 4, 2025

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Israeli pilots' protest letter reveals deepening rift over ongoing war in Gaza

The Israeli Air Force is regarded as one of the country’s most elite units.

So, when hundreds of current and former pilots call for an end to the war in Gaza to get the hostages out, Israelis take notice.

This month, 1,200 pilots caused a storm by signing an open letter arguing the war served mainly “political and personal interests and not security ones”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the original letter was written by “bad apples”.

But Guy Paron, a former pilot and one of those behind the letter, said the Israeli government had failed to move to phase two of the ceasefire deal with Hamas, brokered under US President Donald Trump.

That deal called for a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the release of all the remaining hostages. Mr Netanyahu continues to argue that the war must continue to put pressure on Hamas.

Mr Paron said the (Israeli) government “gave up or violated a signed agreement with Hamas” and “threw it to the trash”.

“You have to finish the deal, release the hostages, even if it means stopping that war,” he argued.

It’s not the first time Israeli pilots have taken up a cause. Many of them also campaigned against Mr Netanyahu’s 2023 judicial reforms.

“In this country, 1,000 Israeli Air Force pilots carry a lot of weight,” Mr Paron added.

“The Air Force historically has been the major force and game-changer in all of Israel’s wars, including this current one. The strength of the Air Force is the public’s guarantee of security.”

Anti-government campaign spreads

Now, the open letter campaign has spread to other parts of the military.

More than 15,000 people have signed, including paratroopers, armoured corps, navy, special units, cyber and medics. The list goes on.

Dr Ofer Havakuk has served 200 days during this war as a combat doctor, mostly in Gaza, and believes the government is continuing the war to stay in power.

He has also signed an open letter supporting the pilots and accused the prime minister of putting politics first.

He said Mr Netanyahu “wants to keep his coalition working and to keep the coalition together. For him, this is the main purpose of the war”.

A ceasefire could lead to the collapse of the prime minister’s fragile far-right coalition, which is opposed to ending the war.

Threat of dismissal

The Israeli military has threatened to dismiss those who have signed protest letters.

We met a former pilot who is still an active reservist. He didn’t want to be identified and is worried he could lose his job.

“This is a price that I’m willing to pay, although it is very big for me because I’m volunteering and, as a volunteer, I want to stay on duty for as long as I can,” he told us.

The controversy over the war and the hostages is gaining momentum inside Israel’s military.

It is also exposing deep divisions in society at a time when there is no clear sign about how the government plans to end the war in Gaza, or when.

The renewed war in Gaza over the last year and a half followed deadly Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023, which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and saw around 250 taken hostage.

More than 51,000 people have been killed in Gaza during the Israeli military’s response, many of them civilians, according to the enclave’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health.