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Gregg Jarrett Op-ed: NY vs. Trump: Michael Cohen’s lies, lies and more lies could sink DA Bragg’s case

By Gregg Jarrett Fox News | Published May 14, 2024 3:00am EDT

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/ny-vs-trump-michael-cohens-lies-sink-da-braggs-case

Michael Cohen raised his right hand on Monday in the Manhattan trial of Donald Trump and swore to tell the truth. It was a meaningless gesture. Cohen has done it before and then proceeded to lie under oath. He went to prison for it after lying to courts, lying to banks, lying to Congress, and lying to the IRS. Yet, once again, Cohen insists that now he’s telling the truth. He wants jurors to believe him. This time.

Cohen presents a contradiction about truth and falsity. In philosophy and logic, it’s known as the “liar’s paradox,” and it bedevils juries whenever habitual liars take the witness stand and promise to tell the truth.

The paradox is this: if a liar indeed lied, then his admission of his lies is truthful. Unless, of course, he is lying about the lie and everything else. You can never really know. The search for truth becomes impossible. In a court of law where the central witness is a chronic fabulist, the “liar’s paradox” equals reasonable doubt.

NY V. TRUMP: COHEN TESTIFIES TO PAYING STORMY DANIELS FROM HIS OWN POCKET

It was on full display Monday when Trump’s one-time self-proclaimed “fixer” failed to connect the accused to any cognizable crime. But Cohen readily confessed that he often lied and bullied people. He also deceived his own client, Trump, by secretly recording him shortly before the 2016 election.

Without permission, Cohen then shared it with the publisher of the National Enquirer. It was a sleazy maneuver that would merit disbarment for breaching the attorney-client privilege. No matter. Cohen was long ago disbarred over his criminal convictions.

When the recording was played in court it seemed to help, not hurt, the defense. Cohen refers cryptically to payments made to kill a story, which is not a crime. Trump appears somewhat in the dark and is heard asking, “What financing?” Cohen assured him that he was taking care of everything. His boss didn’t need to know the details. “I’ve got it…I’m on it,” said Cohen.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg knows that he is teetering dangerously close to suborning perjury. But he is wholly committed to convicting Donald Trump for crimes not committed or fully revealed.

THE PROSECUTION’S STAR WITNESS AGAINST TRUMP, MICHAEL COHEN, IS A CHRONIC AND HABITUAL LIAR

It is bewildering why the prosecution ventured there, except to smear Trump with the illusion of some amorphous wrongdoing. It was utterly irrelevant since the matter dealt with former Playboy model Karen McDougal who was never called as a prosecution witness and is unconnected to the charges. Trump refused to pay her money over a purported affair that he denies.

Cohen then moved on to his tangle with ex-porn star Stormy Daniels, who was intensifying her apparent extortion scheme as voters were soon heading to the polls. Cohen admitted that it was his idea to pay $130,000 for her silence accompanied by a lawful non-disclosure agreement. As Trump’s lawyer, Cohen handled the negotiated contract which was later booked as “legal expenses” because that is what they were.

MICHAEL COHEN TESTIFIES HE SECRETLY RECORDED TRUMP IN LEAD-UP TO 2016 ELECTION

In fact, Cohen confirmed the accuracy of the bookkeeping when he explained that the money he received was compensation for his work on the legal settlement with Daniels, reimbursed payments to him, plus a retainer for his legal services as Trump’s newly named personal attorney.

Michael Cohen is questioned by prosecutor Susan Hoffinger during former U.S. President Donald Trump's criminal trial — Michael Cohen is questioned by prosecutor Susan Hoffinger during former President Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan state court in New York City, May 13, 2024, in this courtroom sketch. (Reuters/Jane Rosenberg )

So, where exactly is the original fraud that forms the basis for the 34 misdemeanor charges alleged by the prosecution? Nowhere.

Cohen later testified that Trump was concerned about how Daniel’s story might impact his 2016 electoral chances. Not surprisingly, that nugget is contradicted by other witnesses who informed the jury that the candidate’s main concern was his wife and family.

Either way, it doesn’t matter. Bragg’s argument is legally flawed because Trump used his own money, not campaign funds. The law imposes limits on the latter, but not on the former.

TRUMP, DEFENDERS SHOW UP IN FORCE AHEAD OF COHEN TESTIMONY

That is one of the principal reasons why the Federal Election Commission (FEC) determined there was no campaign finance violation. The Department of Justice agreed. No civil fine was levied or criminal charge rendered. Those two entities have exclusive authority over federal elections. Not a local prosecutor such as Alvin Bragg.

But that did not stop the Manhattan DA from usurping federal jurisdiction by bringing a campaign case that he has no power to enforce and for violations that don’t exist.

Under normal circumstances, the DOJ would have intervened to stop it. Instead, Attorney General Merrick Garland tossed a going away party for his deputy, Matthew Colangelo, who abandoned his prestigious job at the Department to become Bragg’s lead prosecutor.

Undeterred by the limits of the law, these ethically bankrupt prosecutors have cobbled together a lawless case by asserting that Trump falsified his own private business records with the felonious intent to conceal another crime that they still refused to identify. Presumably, it’s campaign finance. But it’s actually not.

MICHAEL COHEN’S CREDIBILITY ISSUES, BRAZEN TIKTOK USAGE RAISE MEDIA EYEBROWS AHEAD OF TESTIMONY

Former FEC Chairman Bradley Smith put it this way in his column for The Wall Street Journal: “The ‘crime’ that Mr. Bragg claims is being covered up isn’t a crime at all.”

Even if the DA’s warped legal theory proceeds, he must still prove that Trump himself understood campaign finance laws and deliberately intended to violate them. There’s no evidence of that. Even experienced candidates struggle to comprehend the mind-numbing web of campaign regulations. That’s why they depend on lawyers.

Bragg wants to put Trump in prison for relying on the advice of his legal counsel. There’s a legal term for that. Nutty.

On cross-examination, Cohen will surely be confronted with his myriad of lies, which I’ve recounted in earlier columns. One in particular is worth remembering. In February of 2018, he told the New York Times, “The payment to Ms. Clifford was lawful and was not a campaign contribution or a campaign expenditure.”

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Shortly thereafter, Cohen changed his tune. It’s changing still. When he retakes the witness stand on Tuesday he’ll regurgitate more lies and misinformation. None of it is worth a damn because Cohen represents the quintessential “liar’s paradox.” He’s told so many fibs that even his recantations are self-contradictory.

In the trial at hand, Cohen has a personal interest in lying —hatred and greed. When he isn’t trolling for dollars on TikTok by trashing Trump, he’s hawking a proposed reality show that he calls, “The Fixer.” Cohen needs to fix himself.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg knows that he is teetering dangerously close to suborning perjury. But he is wholly committed to convicting Donald Trump for crimes not committed or fully revealed. By calling Cohen as his star witness, the DA has forsaken his duty to seek the truth. He is aiding and abetting a convicted perjurer by enabling more lies.

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This is the worst kind of government corruption. Unscrupulous, dishonest, and amoral. It is antithetical to justice and an embarrassment to our once respected legal system.

It’s not a paradox. It’s a tragedy.

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Gregg Jarrett is a Fox News legal analyst and commentator, and formerly worked as a defense attorney and adjunct law professor. His recent book, “The Trial of the Century,” about the famous “Scopes Monkey Trial” is available in bookstores nationwide or can be ordered online at the Simon & Schuster website. Jarrett’s latest book, “The Constitution of the United States and Other Patriotic Documents,” was published by Broadside Books, a division of HarperCollins on November 14, 2023. Gregg is the author of the No. 1 New York Times best-selling book “The Russia Hoax: The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump.” His follow-up book was also a New York Times bestseller, “Witch Hunt: The Story of the Greatest Mass Delusion in American Political History.”

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Gregg Jarrett Op-ed: NY vs. Trump: DA Bragg’s web of deceit starts to unravel

By Gregg Jarrett Fox News | Published May 3, 2024 5:00am EDT

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/ny-vs-trump-da-braggs-web-deceit-unravel

Liars don’t win trials. The truth does. That’s how it’s supposed to work, anyway.

Fulfilling that maxim is the challenge for the defense in the Manhattan trial of Donald Trump. Lawyers for the former President are tasked with exposing the legal deceit of District Attorney Alvin Bragg and the chronic dishonesty of his star witness, Michael Cohen. Compounding the challenge is a presiding judge, Juan Merchan, whose anti-Trump bias is conspicuous and disgraceful.

Back on the stand Thursday was the Beverly Hills attorney who negotiated payments for two women who demanded exorbitant cash from Trump in exchange for their silence about purported affairs. But the witness, Keith Davidson, admitted he had no contact whatsoever with the defendant and never met him. He dealt exclusively with Trump’s ex-lawyer, Cohen, who appeared to be acting entirely on his own. Nothing in his testimony involved crimes allegedly committed by Trump.

NY VS. TRUMP: A TRIAL IN SEARCH OF AN IMAGINARY CRIME

Davidson’s description of Cohen was both accurate and scathing —profane, offensive, unceasingly angry, and often threatening. Importantly, he depicted Cohen as a liar who turned bitter toward Trump when the newly elected president refused to take him to Washington, D.C. Jurors learned that Cohen had delusions of grandeur, envisioning himself as White House chief of staff or even attorney general of the United States.

When his bubble burst, Cohen detonated like a nuclear device with seething hatred for his former boss that became a maniacal obsession. He raged to Davidson, “Jesus Christ, can you f***ing believe I’m not going to Washington after everything I’ve done for that guy?” Cohen seemed suicidal. This helps shape the defense theory that Cohen’s real objective in testifying against Trump is vengeance, not truth.

It’s hard to imagine that any sentient or ethical prosecutor would ever rest his case on the slumped shoulders of an unhinged and inveterate liar like Cohen. After confessing in 2018 to a string of shameful fabrications under oath, he was dispatched to prison for perjury and fraud. He is exactly what a federal judge called him recently, “a serial perjurer.” He’s the Talented Mr. Ripley…without the talent.

MICHAEL COHEN TIKTOK VIDEOS, FUNDRAISING STUN LEGAL OBSERVERS: MAY HAVE ‘TORPEDOED CASE AGAINST TRUMP’

After appearing incessantly on television shows trashing Trump and calling him a criminal, Cohen has taken to TikTok during the trial to comment on the testimony and escalate his Trump tirades. His social media rants reap financial profits, which means that now, more than ever, he has an economic motive to lie. Indeed, his livelihood depends on it. Prosecutors’ heads must have exploded when they discovered what he was doing. What little credibility Cohen might have brought to the courtroom has vanished.

Michael Cohen — FILE – Michael Cohen, former personal lawyer to former President Donald Trump is seen outside federal court in New York City on Thursday, Dec. 14, 2023. (Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The mere mention of Cohen’s name in a court of law should equal “reasonable doubt.” He’s the definition of untrustworthy. Without him there is no legitimate case to be prosecuted. But instead of throwing in the towel by admitting that their central witness has gone rogue and self-destructed, Bragg persists in his contemptible pursuit of Trump. The D.A. is like an attack dog who won’t let go.

If there is a sleaze factor to the trial, it has rubbed off on Bragg’s witnesses more than Trump. Increasingly, the defendant resembles a victim of blackmail, which the law defines as a demand for money under threat.

If Bragg thought that Davidson would be a stellar witness for the prosecution, it may have backfired. He refused to call the Stormy Daniels payment “hush money or a payoff” while insisting that its proper definition is “consideration.” That is a fancy legal term in contract law that simply means an exchange of benefits. Here, it was compensation in return for a non-disclosure agreement. Booking it as a legal expense would, therefore, be manifestly proper.

MORNING GLORY: THE SHOW TRIAL OF DONALD TRUMP

This key testimony blows a gaping hole in all of Bragg’s 34 charges against Trump that he falsified private business records. What was false? The Daniels deal was a legal settlement negotiated by two lawyers that culminated in the execution of a legal document. Of course, it was a legal expense. What else would it be?

On cross-examination, Davidson melted like a Joe Biden ice cream cone when confronted with evidence that he was once investigated by law enforcement for criminal extortion, although never charged. He admitted that much of his practice involved “extracting” money (he preferred to label them “settlements”) from celebrities. He also “brokered sex tapes.” For the defense, it fits a pattern of squeezing prominent people for cash during times of vulnerability. People such as Donald Trump.

If there is a sleaze factor to the trial, it has rubbed off on Bragg’s witnesses more than Trump. Increasingly, the defendant resembles a victim of blackmail, which the law defines as a demand for money under threat. In 2016, as the presidential election neared, the cash ultimatums intensified and, in the case of Daniels, Trump reluctantly capitulated.

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However, that does not mean that Trump himself committed any crimes. His personal reimbursements to Cohen did not constitute a violation of election laws, as Bragg contends. The two government departments that have exclusive authority over such matters —the Federal Election Commission and the Justice Department— correctly concluded that the payments to Daniels did not constitute an unlawful contribution.

In other words, there’s no there there. But Alvin Bragg could care less. He deliberately commandeered a state statute that has no application to a federal election and twisted it into a pretzel to bring a preposterous charge against Trump that is utterly unsupported by the facts and the law.

The consternation for the defense is the jurors who may be predisposed to convict in a politically charged case involving a presidential candidate they might dislike. Are they capable of setting aside their personal beliefs to see through the prosecution’s charade? Or will they be snookered into believing that there is an election crime here, even though there is none?

When an unscrupulous prosecutor contorts statutes and deploys nefarious or lying witnesses to fool a jury into convicting an innocent defendant, it is an assault on the rule of law and an abuse of our justice system. In Manhattan, the crooked cards are stacked against Trump.

We’ll see whether liars win trials…or the truth.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM GREGG JARRETT

Gregg Jarrett is a Fox News legal analyst and commentator, and formerly worked as a defense attorney and adjunct law professor. His recent book, “The Trial of the Century,” about the famous “Scopes Monkey Trial” is available in bookstores nationwide or can be ordered online at the Simon & Schuster website. Jarrett’s latest book, “The Constitution of the United States and Other Patriotic Documents,” was published by Broadside Books, a division of HarperCollins on November 14, 2023. Gregg is the author of the No. 1 New York Times best-selling book “The Russia Hoax: The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump.” His follow-up book was also a New York Times bestseller, “Witch Hunt: The Story of the Greatest Mass Delusion in American Political History.”

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Gregg Jarrett Op-ed: Hunter Biden case uncovers new, unequal justice in America

Gregg Jarrett

By Gregg Jarrett | Fox News | Published June 21, 2023 4:00am EDT

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/hunter-biden-case-uncovers-unequal-justice-america

“Equal Justice Under Law” is now officially dead.

That lofty ideal chiseled on the pediment of the U.S. Supreme Court was blown to shreds with the indefensible plea deal for Hunter Biden that allows him to skate on severe criminal charges that would have landed anyone else in America behind bars. The preferential treatment for the president’s son makes a mockery of the law. We knew it was coming. The government’s investigation had stretched for more than five long years. By itself, that was absurd. The evidence against Hunter was clear and convincing.

GOP RIPS HUNTER’S ‘SWEETHEART’ PLEA DEAL ON TAX AND GUN CRIMES, ZERO IN ON JOE BIDEN

He evaded taxes on millions of dollars that he pocketed from overseas sources — part of his elaborate influence-peddling schemes that leveraged access to his powerful father. He obviously lied on a gun form and broke the law when he purchased a firearm.

Joe Biden's son Hunter's laptop was authenticated by NBC News on May 19 — Hunter Biden and his father President Joe Biden. Hunter’s new plea agreement still won’t protect him from investigation by the House of Representatives. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for World Food Program USA)

But President Joe Biden and his consigliere at the Justice Department, Attorney General Merrick Garland, have rewritten the criminal codes with a special exemption. A Biden can defy the law with impunity. Everyone else must abide.

There is no justifying this demolition of justice. Unequal application of the statutes is now the law of the land. Our legal system is as corrupt as the Bidens. They made it so.

The privileged plea also calls into question the integrity of David Weiss, the U.S. attorney in Delaware, who negotiated a slap on the wrist instead of pursuing other, more serious, felony charges. In a public statement he insisted that his investigation into further acts of potential wrongdoing continues. There is reason to be skeptical. His announcement of an ongoing probe smacks of a charade designed to prevent him from answering uncomfortable questions by a congressional committee that is digging deep into Biden family corruption.

Whistleblowers warned that Garland’s DOJ, the FBI, and the IRS were running a protection racket for the Bidens by exerting undue influence and political favoritism to cover up brazen criminality. Tuesday’s plea fortifies their credibility. Hunter Biden’s laptop alone is a treasure trove of incriminating evidence that implicates his father as complicit in secret deals to profit from his public office. The sheer magnitude of the schemes is staggering. Who knew that selling out your country could be so lucrative?

The House Oversight Committee may be the last refuge for anything resembling justice. It cannot prosecute, but it can expose. In the last five months committee members have combed through many of the 170 Suspicious Activity Reports, wire transfers and banking transactions showing that nine members of the Biden family received an astonishing amount of money from America’s adversaries.

Hunter Biden exits at the Independence County Courthouse in Batesville, Arkansas on Monday, May 1, 2023. Biden, who is with attorney Abbe Lowell, was ordered to appear in court regarding the paternity case of his unacknowledged 4-year-old-daughter. (Mega for Fox News Digital)

The payments were disguised through a complex web of shell companies and limited liability corporations that appear to have no legitimate business purpose other than to serve as receptacles for hiding cash, according to Chairman James Comer, R-KY. In Washington, where influence-peddling and graft are endemic, the Bidens have taken them to dizzying heights. It is no coincidence that the money sources came from the very countries over which Joe Biden exerted control in foreign policy decisions as vice president.

What was being bought? More to the point, what were the Bidens selling? In the process, did they sacrifice America’s national security to get rich? Did they conspire with malign foreign actors to betray our nation for self-enrichment?

One answer may be found in the mining of an unclassified FBI document that allegedly depicts a “criminal scheme” involving the Bidens and a top executive at Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company that was paying millions of dollars to Hunter to sit on its board.

A trusted and “highly credible” confidential human source (CHS) for the FBI reported that the elder Biden accepted $5 million in exchange for “policy decisions” benefiting the company, while Hunter banked another $5 million. The money, according to the CHS, was secreted in a multitude of hidden accounts. This seems to be the same suspected “pay-to-play” scheme reflected in Joe Biden’s famous on-camera brag that he threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. taxpayer aid to Ukraine unless the prosecutor investigating Burisma was fired. Within hours, Viktor Shokin was canned, and his investigation vanished overnight. Mission accomplished.

The Ukraine caper is similar to other Biden grifts in roughly a dozen foreign countries where Hunter negotiated “deals” that were dependent on his father, even setting up meetings between the vice president and overseas clients that are documented in his laptop and other records. The younger Biden never registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) as the law demands, which makes his transactions illegal. Others who have failed to do so have been criminally prosecuted, but not the president’s son. Hunter’s laptop alone is a treasure trove of incriminating evidence that implicates his father as complicit in secret deals to profit from his public office. The sheer magnitude of the schemes is staggering. Who knew that selling out your country could be so lucrative?

Nor have any charges been leveled under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. It is a crime for a public officeholder to confer a benefit to a foreign actor in exchange for personal financial gain. But given the partisan interference by our government institutions for the benefit of the Bidens, don’t expect that charges will ever be brought. The fix is in.

Where the Department of Justice refuses to act, Congress must. It has the backing of the American people who recognize corruption when they see it. A recent Harvard Harris poll found that 63% of voters believe that Hunter Biden engaged in illegal influence peddling, and a majority think Joe Biden was involved.

In an upcoming election where the incumbent president’s DOJ is prosecuting his likely opponent on dubious charges while simultaneously protecting Biden, it is imperative that any evidence of criminality be exposed for all to see. The money trail uncovered so far is a damning indictment of corruption at the highest level of government — the current occupant of the White House.

Gregg Jarrett is a Fox News legal analyst and commentator, and formerly worked as a defense attorney and adjunct law professor. His upcoming book, “The Trial of the Century,” about the famous “Scopes Monkey Trial” will be released on May 30, 2023. It is available now for pre-order online at the Simon & Schuster website. Gregg is the author of the No. 1 New York Times best-selling book “The Russia Hoax: The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump.” His follow-up book was also a New York Times bestseller, “Witch Hunt: The Story of the Greatest Mass Delusion in American Political History.” Jarrett’s book, “The Constitution of the United States and Other Patriotic Documents,” will be published by Broadside Books, a division of HarperCollins on September 19, 2023.

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Gregg Jarrett Op-ed: Durham reports shows Biden and Obama knew truth of Trump collusion hoax but kept silent

Gregg Jarrett

Gregg Jarrett | Fox News | Published May 22, 2023 4:00am EDT

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/durham-reports-shows-biden-obama-knew-truth-trump-collusion-hoax-kept-silent

A silence kept in order to hide the truth is a lie.

By that maxim, there are plenty of liars among prominent Democrats who knew that the damning Trump-Russia collusion narrative was all a hoax. But they chose to remain mum, preferring instead to watch contentedly as an American president was vilified nonstop by a media-driven orgy of lies. It consumed the nation for years and inflicted untold harm. None of them had the decency to volunteer the truth.

This is one of the key findings in the 306-page Durham report that the special counsel filled to the brim with documented acts of deviousness, dishonesty and malice by high officials in government whom we are supposed to trust but should not.

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Obama and Biden selfie — Barack Obama and Joe Biden (Joe Biden/Instagram)

In July 2016, CIA Director John Brennan rushed to the White House to brief then-President Barack Obama and Joe Biden, our current president, about alarming new evidence uncovered by American intelligence. The agency had obtained reliable information that “Hillary Clinton had approved a campaign plan to stir up a scandal against Donald Trump by tying him to Putin and the Russians” (page 81 of the report).

BOMBSHELL DURHAM REPORT CONFIRMS FBI, JUSTICE DEPARTMENT HAD THESE RADICAL MOTIVES

It was an outrageous and wholly invented accusation unsupported by anything except Hillary’s craven imagination. Her shrewd goal was to frame her opponent for unidentified crimes that he never committed and, thereby, damage or sink his candidacy.

As Durham noted, the despicable smear had the dual benefit of distracting from her own nagging email scandal that was dragging down her poll numbers. Given its potency, the Clinton canard ranks as the dirtiest trick ever perpetrated in American politics.

Obama and Biden knew all about Hillary’s treachery and so did others in their orbit who were secretly briefed, including Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and FBI Director James Comey. This is corroborated by Brennan’s handwritten notes. For the next three years all of them remained silent about the CIA’s findings.

Collectively, they concealed the truth of Trump’s innocence as he was hounded by the constant condemnation of conspiring with Moscow, even though he did no such thing. On almost a daily basis, the media pronounced him guilty in the court of public opinion. Brennan and Clapper took to the airwaves and dishonestly denounced Trump as a Russian asset, hiding what they knew.

At the outset of the hoax, Hillary’s devoted coterie of disciples plotted to spread the lie. They secretly paid a sleazy ex-foreign spy, Christopher Steele, to obtain Russian disinformation about Trump and compose a phony “dossier.” They leaked it to journalists who promptly insisted that it was true without ever bothering to verify or corroborate its contents. News organizations even published the full collection of lies that was covertly bankrolled by Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

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Andrew McCabe at hearing — The FBI’s Andrew McCabe testifies during a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on May 11, 2017, in Washington, D.C. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

DURHAM REPORT REVEALED CORRUPTION THAT COULD MEAN THIS STUNNER FOR TRUMP IN 2024

The shameless media was emboldened by the unscrupulous maneuvers of Comey and his confederates. Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and senior counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok launched a dogged investigation of Trump. It commenced literally days after the FBI director learned of Hillary’s fraudulent machinations.

The bureau had no basis whatsoever to open the probe because agents lacked “any actual evidence of collusion” and traduced their own strict guidelines, according to Durham. Those in charge broke every rule in the book. In a brazen reversal of standards, they willingly exploited the Clinton lie as a pretext to persecute Trump with salacious and specious slurs. Their lawless actions were inflamed by their “prejudice against him” and their “pronounced hostile feelings,” the report explained.

The vainglorious James Comey, who refused to cooperate with the Durham investigation, now publicly claims to be suffering near total amnesia. It is a curious affliction since the special counsel’s report reveals that he demanded and received “daily briefings.” Whenever agents working the case had the temerity to complain that there was no real evidence implicating Trump in any wrongdoing, Comey stuck wads of cotton in his ears. He pushed a relentless witch hunt in a maniacal quest to destroy the man he loathed so obsessively.

James Comey — James Comey speaks to members of the media after testifying before the House Judiciary and House Oversight and Government Reform Committees joint investigation in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 7, 2018. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The same FBI bias that worked against Trump worked in favor of Clinton. Comey commandeered authority he did not have to absolve her of the crimes she clearly committed in mishandling classified emails and destroying evidence under subpoena. He refused to pursue investigations of Hillary despite compelling evidence that she misused her charitable foundation for self-enrichment in ways eerily similar to the notorious Biden family influence peddling schemes.

Tens of millions of Russian dollars landed in Clinton’s nonprofit, which she treated as her personal piggy bank. With Comey at the helm, four ongoing probes into likely “criminal activity” magically vanished. Trump didn’t collude with Russia, but it appears his opponent did – and got away with it.

Durham minced no words in describing the FBI’s double standard and the “dual system of justice” it produced. Hillary received the courtesy of a defensive briefing about corrupt foreign actors but Trump did not. The FBI rejected a surveillance warrant on Clinton from the secret FISA court while seeking four successive spy warrants involving Trump’s campaign. To secure the intrusions, exculpatory evidence was withheld and supporting documents altered.

Donald Trump Hillary Clinton — Hillary Clinton and former President Donald Trump (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images | Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

Comey deceived the judges by vouching for the credibility of the bogus dossier that his agency had already debunked. He represented that Steele was a reliable source when he knew that the shady spook was not. Indeed, Steele was fired by the FBI as a paid confidential informant because he repeatedly lied. This vital fact was deliberately concealed from the court.

The irony embedded in the great collusion con is fully exposed in the Durham report. Instead of conspiring with Putin in the bowels of the Kremlin, Trump became the victim of Clinton-induced Russian disinformation that helped fuel the fabricated dossier. Hillary’s cronies supplied much of the deceit in Steele’s work of fiction, but so did Moscow.

From the moment he took the oath of office, the Republican president was saddled with multiple investigations by the FBI, Congress and a special counsel. Demands for his indictment and impeachment reverberated through the halls of Capitol Hill, in newsrooms across America, on television airwaves, and on social media websites everywhere. All the while, those who knew the truth remained conspicuously quiet.

The special counsel’s well-documented report lifts the veil on the cesspool of corruption that has infected the FBI for far too long. Beyond Clinton, there are many villains in this sordid story but none so contemptible as Obama, Biden, Brennan, Clapper and Comey. They knew it was all a cunning lie but kept silent to hide the truth. They watched as a spasm of false allegations tore the nation apart.

Such silence speaks volumes about their absence of character and integrity. They were more than willing to fan the flames of political divisiveness in America. That is not leadership. It is cowardice.

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Gregg Jarrett is a Fox News legal analyst and commentator, and formerly worked as a defense attorney and adjunct law professor. His upcoming book, “The Trial of the Century,” about the famous “Scopes Monkey Trial” will be released on May 30, 2023. It is available now for pre-order online at the Simon & Schuster website. Gregg is the author of the No. 1 New York Times best-selling book “The Russia Hoax: The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump.” His follow-up book was also a New York Times bestseller, “Witch Hunt: The Story of the Greatest Mass Delusion in American Political History.” Jarrett’s book, “The Constitution of the United States and Other Patriotic Documents,” will be published by Broadside Books, a division of HarperCollins on September 19, 2023.

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Trump’s expected ‘arrest’: The politics and power plays behind these legally feeble charges

By Gregg Jarrett | Fox News | Published March 20, 2023 4:00am EDT

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/trump-expected-arrest-politics-power-plays-behind-legally-feeble-charges

With word from former President Donald Trump that he will “be arrested” on a criminal indictment engineered by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg over alleged hush money payments made during the 2016 campaign, it is essential to examine what motivated the charges.

At its core, the case represents an egregious abuse of power and the corrupt weaponization of the law for political gain. Bereft of any credible evidence, Bragg is contorting the law in a brazen attempt to inflate his case. His actions constitute serious prosecutorial misconduct. It is the culmination of a years-long effort by the District Attorney’s Office to target Trump for something – anything.

It doesn’t seem to matter to the progressive DA that his case against the former president is the definition of flimsy and stale as month-old bread. Bragg is determined to hack off the mold and sell it as something fresh and new.

Former President Trump said he will "be arrested" on a criminal indictment engineered by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, — Former President Trump said he will “be arrested” on a criminal indictment engineered by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, (Associated Press)

Forget about the statute of limitations that expired years ago. Or that his predecessor declined prosecution because the law does not support a criminal charge. Or that the feds who investigated the case determined that the evidence just wasn’t there. Never mind that Bragg’s legal theory is novel, if not bizarre. Or that his star witness, Michael Cohen, is a confessed liar who went to prison and whose name is synonymous with sleaze and dishonesty.

LEGAL EXPERT TORCHES MANHATTAN DA’S POTENTIAL TRUMP ARREST: ‘BANANA REPUBLIC SORT OF STUFF’

In a sensible world, all of that should matter. But it doesn’t because Trump is the Democrats’ eternal boogeyman. Since he’s running again for president, he has to be stopped – by hook or by crook.

So, Bragg exhumed a seven-year-old corpse of a case and appears to have snookered a grand jury into indicting the former president. The end justifies any malevolent means.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg during a press conference in New York on Sept. 8, 2022. — Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg during a press conference in New York on Sept. 8, 2022. (Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

In Bragg’s twisted book, Donald Trump should be treated like a hardcore criminal because money was given to porn star, Stormy Daniels, in exchange for keeping her mouth shut in the run-up to the 2016 election. Bear in mind, such agreements are legally permissible. Silence that is conditional upon payment is not against the law. Non-disclosure agreements with pecuniary benefits attached are a common method of maintaining confidentiality. Even if it involves consensual sex, which Trump vigorously denies.

The DA’s only impediment was the law and how to circumvent its narrowly defined language to trump up a case against Trump. That’s when Bragg was forced to get creative. He dreamed up a legally cockamamie plan to supercharge a misdemeanor into a felony by bootstrapping a supposed secondary crime to it.

Here’s how it works, at least in Bragg’s brain. It is a mere misdemeanor under New York law to falsify business records. But by claiming that the Stormy payment was somehow calculated to violate arcane campaign reporting laws, viola! A second crime that elevates it to a felony.

Michael Cohen leaves his apartment to report to prison in Manhattan on May 6, 2019. — Michael Cohen leaves his apartment to report to prison in Manhattan on May 6, 2019. (Reuters/Jeenah Moon TPX Images of the Day/File Photo)

Bragg’s scrutiny of campaign laws must have been cursory. In his zeal to nail Trump, he apparently skipped over the part about “dual purpose” contributions. That is, if money paid serves a double or ancillary function then it is not a reportable expense or donation to the campaign. Hence, no crime was committed. This has been Trump’s argument all along. He did it primarily for personal and commercial reasons.

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There are a few other pesky problems with Bragg’s strategy. First, it would have to be shown that Trump himself was involved in falsifying records. Second, Bragg would have to prove that Trump not only understood the complex and convoluted campaign laws that few people comprehend, but that he intended to violate them. Third, which set of campaign laws applies? There’s the rub.

It’s been reported that Bragg is considering citing New York’s campaign statutes as the “second crime.” But wait, the presidential contest was a federal election. Moreover, state campaign laws are preempted by federal campaign laws. So, that’s a stretch. What about using those same federal laws as the second crime? Can someone be charged under state law for violating a federal law? Not likely. Prosecutors would be exceeding their jurisdictional authority. The DA can only charge under state statutes.

It is obvious that Bragg doesn’t give a hoot about the law. He’s banking on the likelihood that a liberal New York judge will let the case go to a Manhattan jury stacked with biased Trump-haters anxious to ignore all the legal constraints and convict the former president despite the paucity of incriminating evidence. However, I wouldn’t bet on any conviction being upheld on appeal.

Also, don’t be fooled by the theatrics of an expected grand jury indictment. That was a cinch. There are rarely any enforceable rules of evidence because the proceedings are secret and lopsided. Double hearsay, unauthenticated documents, and all kinds of sketchy stuff that is otherwise inadmissible at trial can be introduced without objection.

Adult film actress Stormy Daniels — Adult film actress Stormy Daniels (AP)

No one from the defense is present to contest the purported evidence or to challenge the witnesses. Jurors tend to accept as gospel the pablum prosecutors spoon-feed them. It’s the equivalent of a turkey shoot. And a charade. Hence the old saying, “You can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich.”

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The tortured history of trying to criminalize the Stormy episode undermines Bragg’s entire rationale. The Justice Department, as well as the Federal Elections Commission, long ago examined whether Trump violated election laws. They summarily dropped the matter after concluding there was no viable case. But Bragg won’t let a dead horse remain unbeaten. He is resolved to resurrect a feckless and moribund case.

As the chief prosecutor in a city reeling from rampant crime, you would assume that Bragg is preoccupied with public safety instead of pursuing a politically motivated case. Wrong assumption. The lawlessness that plagues New York City doesn’t seem to interest him in the least.

The great irony is that Bragg has spent most of his tenure in office downgrading felonies to misdemeanors. But now he wants to upgrade a misdemeanor to a felony because his target’s name is Trump. His selective prosecution is an affront to the principle of equal justice under the law.

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I suspect that the district attorney’s real goal is to interfere in the upcoming presidential election by knocking out Trump. In a democracy, that important decision should be left up to voters, not a local prosecutor doing the bidding of his political party. Fortunately, most Americans are smart enough to see through the veneer of a sham case.

Indeed, Bragg’s actions may well have the unintended consequence of rallying even more support for Donald Trump.

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Gregg Jarrett is a Fox News legal analyst and commentator, and formerly worked as a defense attorney and adjunct law professor. He is the author of the No. 1 New York Times best-selling book “The Russia Hoax: The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump.” His latest book is the New York Times bestseller “Witch Hunt: The Story of the Greatest Mass Delusion in American Political History”

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