Alvin Bragg’s Democrat Predecessor Blasts Weak Case Against Trump

While Alvin Bragg, Manhattan’s Democrat District Attorney, goes forward with his indictment of Donald Trump, his predecessor, Cyrus Vance Jr. (D) hints that Bragg’s case is weak in an interview with NBC News. Vance Jr. while saying that one should be mindful that “only District Attorney Bragg knows what the evidence is” later admitted that the alleged case against the former president is “not the strongest case.”

Vance denounced Trump for making adverse comments about Mr. Bragg and the forthcoming trial. He said that Trump should be “mindful of not committing some other criminal offense, like obstruction of governmental administration, which is interfering with, by threat or otherwise, the operation of government.” Vance also said that the trial date happening before, during, or after the 2024 election is up to the judge.

When the former prosecutor was directly pressed on whether Bragg’s case was “airtight”, Vance only remarked that “I do not know if this guy’s case is airtight or not. I know that the DA’s office has extremely experienced and seasoned lawyers.” It ought to be noted that Democrats have constantly controlled the Manhattan District Attorney post since 1941. The last Republican to occupy that post was Thomas E. Dewey, former governor of New York and the Republican presidential candidate in 1944 and 1948.

Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) was also interviewed by NBC News and commented that “it’s a very sad time for America” and that “no one’s above the law, but no one should be targeted by the law.”

Mr. Vance Jr’s statements, while biased against Trump, constitute a lackluster defense of Bragg. They make him yet another critic of the case against Trump.

Trump Hires ‘Additional Firepower’ for Legal Defense As Arraignment Looms

Even if the worst should happen and Mr. Trump be convicted and jailed on the ludicrous case allegedly against him then he can still run for and be elected as the president of the United States. Eugene V. Debs was in prison when he ran for the presidency in 1920 on the socialist ticket and in that election garnered the largest number of votes he ever received in his many runs for the White House. Mr. Debs was imprisoned under charges of sedition for violating the 1917 Espionage Act for a speech he gave that criticized the Act in his anti-war speech in 1918.

In his speech, he noted that “I may not be able to say all that I think; but I am not going to say anything that I do not think” and that ironically he would be “extremely careful, prudent, as to what I say, and even more careful and more prudent as to how I say it.” He said about the First World War that “[t]hey have always taught you that it is your patriotic duty to go to war and slaughter yourselves at their command. You have never had a voice in the war. The working class who make the sacrifices, who shed the blood, have never yet had a voice in declaring war.”

Mr. Debs thought that his speech was moderated to fit the perimeters of speech tolerable under the Espionage Act yet federal agents in the crowd did not think so and neither did the court that sentenced him to serve jail time for his speech. In a letter to a friend, Debs wrote that “I am expecting nothing but conviction under a law flagrantly unconstitutional and which was framed especially for the suppression of free speech.” Debs also noted in court that nothing in his speech was accused of being false and if anything were he would retract it.

Eugene Debs was pardoned and his sentence commuted by President Warren G. Harding, a Republican, on December 25, 1921. President Harding later met Mr. Debs after his imprisonment at the White House and greeted the man by saying “I have heard so damned much about you.”

Admittedly, Mr. Trump is no Debs. He is the potential champion of a mainstream party and by some polls likely to win the popular vote in his 2024 bid for the White House.