Legal Scholar Slams Weak Trump Indictment Charges – ‘There’s No There There’

Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor, was recently interviewed by Fox News on his thoughts about the unveiling of the indictment charges. Professor Turley was clipped in a tweet by MAGA War Room saying “There’s no there there…you would think if you are going to indict a president, you would rise to that moment of history and tell people with precision what it is that you want to convict him of.”

GWU Law Professor Jonathan Turley: "There’s no there there…you would think if you are going to indict a president, you would rise to that moment of history and tell people with precision what it is that you want to convict him of." pic.twitter.com/EFYoGboRaY

— MAGA War Room (@MAGAIncWarRoom) April 4, 2023

In that interview between Turley and Bret Baier, a journalist for Fox News, commented that the crimes alleged by the indictment was “the Orient Express without the body. You are looking for it and it just never comes up.” The law professor said “I have never seen an indictment quite like this one…I know a lot of judges who would have been not too pleased to receive an indictment like this…[the judge would have asked] what are you alleging? Bragg just sort of waved it off and said I don’t have to really say.”

Turley asked himself “how did the grand jury understand what it was doing.” He added that we might see this better with the forthcoming bill of particulars “but it really raises concerns as to how well the grand jury these key linchpins.” Turley simply said “there is really nothing there [in the indictment].” The interview then touched on the lack of new revelations by the indictment, the obscurity of the underlying crime alluded to in the indictment, and the collapsibility of the case when subject to substantial legal questions even before it gets to a formal trial.

Professor Turley also wrote an opinion piece where he labelled Bragg’s case “an Ed Wood movie come to life” in that there are “obvious gaps in logic” and that “Bragg left…[t]he underlying felony Trump allegedly sought to conceal over and over.”

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Washington Post legal columnists were not overawed by Bragg’s presentation of the charges either. Ruth Marcus, a journalist for the liberal newspaper, wrote that the case was “a dangerous leap on the highest of wires” , it was “not well-trodden legal territory”, there was circular logic in Bragg’s presentation, and that her fears about the indictment’s weaknesses “were in no way allayed.” Ruth Marcus is on the record in the same article saying she hopes Bragg wins anyways since she fears that a loss for the prosecution means that Trump and his supporters will feel vindicated about their claims about the system being weaponized against them.

That circular logic expressed by Ruth Marcus does not hold up. If the case is political and by her own account “not well-trodden legal territory” then irrespective of a just or unjust resolution to the indictment it stands to reason that the system has been weaponized. An unjust resolution that of the judge and jury finding Trump guilty on this weak of a case would arguably make for an even stronger reason to feel that the system is weaponized. 

Mike Davis, the president of the Article III project, called the indictment “Garbage” and mentioned that Bragg ought to “face disbarment and imprisonment for this blatantly political, malicious prosecution.”

Garbage.

In a fair country, @GeorgeSoros-funded @ManhattanDA @AlvinBraggNYC would face disbarment and imprisonment for this blatantly political, malicious prosecution against a former president and current presidential candidate.

This is a (bad) joke.https://t.co/bAK4aVaPKq

— 🇺🇸 Mike Davis 🇺🇸 (@mrddmia) April 4, 2023

Such a tweeted sentiment expressed the thoughts of many about the sheer lack of a case against Donald Trump. Democratic politicians of course do themselves no justice in inadvertently pointing out how political this all is.

Representative Daniel Goldman (D-NY), a former Trump impeachment counsel, tweeted that “The “election interference” defense was as predictable as it is bogus” on top of his previous tweet that read “Authoritarian Donald Trump still owns the Republican Party. He will run again in 2024 because it is his best criminal defense strategy. We must defend and protect our democracy.”

The “election interference” defense was as predictable as it is bogus. https://t.co/Mzdc0sLL5c

— Daniel Goldman (@danielsgoldman) April 4, 2023

Defending and protecting our democracy to Mr. Goldman clearly means allowing politically motivation persecution of your enemies while labeling those point out this out is “predictable” and “bogus.” But what can be expected of the Democratic representative when, according Paul Sperry,  the senior reporter for Real Clear Investigations, the man was in consultation with Mr. Bragg about Trump’s indictment. Clearly, Mr. Goldman’s first priority is not pursuit of blind justice fairly delivered.

BREAKING: House sources say Democratic Rep. Daniel Goldman of Manhattan — who prosecuted the first Trump impeachment & has been bragging to reporters about sabotaging GOP investigations of the Bidens — has privately consulted with Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg about indicting Trump

— Paul Sperry (@paulsperry_) March 31, 2023