Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg presented his bag-of-tricks indictment Tuesday charging former President Donald Trump with 34 counts of false entries in business records.
Bragg managed to slice and dice two payments to a Playboy model and a porn star into what sounds like a big deal — 34 felonies.
Don’t be fooled.
As former US Attorney General Bill Barr, no Trump fan, said, Bragg’s case is “an abomination” held together “by chicken wire and paper clips and rubber bands.”
Judge Juan Merchan set the next court date for Dec. 4, with a trial likely sometime next year.
That’s smack in the middle of the presidential race and will stick Trump in a courtroom with daily press coverage as “the defendant.”
After Trump’s arraignment, Bragg said he charged the ex-prez because “everyone stands equal before the law.”
That’s a lie. No one else would have been prosecuted for the business entries listed in the indictment.
Nor would Trump, had he quietly exited the White House in 2020 and retired.
The prosecution intends to cripple Trump’s candidacy.
That is why it is important the entire trial be televised.
The New York County jury pool may be unavoidably biased against Trump, but if the jury convicts, the case will be appealed to a court in which the law and facts will more likely prevail.
The real jury in this case is the nation, which will decide if it wants Donald Trump to be president again.
The public needs to be able to scrutinize Trump’s trial, gavel to gavel.
Bragg’s legal gymnastics must be on full display as he attempts to leap over the statute of limitations, turn a state misdemeanor allegedly committed seven years ago into a federal felony and transform two business transactions into 34 separate crimes.
Here’s the hitch: In New York state, cameras are barred from the courtroom.
A bill to allow televised coverage awaits action in the Legislature. Lawmakers need to pass it now. The public deserves transparency.
All states except New York and Louisiana already permit cameras in court.
A televised trial will allow people to see for themselves whether the judge treats both sides fairly and if the prosecution’s key witnesses — convicted perjurer Michael Cohen and porn star Stephanie Gregory Clifford, known as “Stormy Daniels” — crumble under cross-examination.
How believable are these people?
The spotlight should also be trained on Merchan, assigned to the case in New York state Supreme Court. Trump lashed out Friday on Truth Social, saying Merchan “HATES ME” and “treated my companies . . . VICIOUSLY.”
Merchan presided over last year’s jury trial of Trump’s real-estate company for tax offenses, resulting in a conviction and fines, as well as the sentencing of Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg to five months in prison.
He’s also presiding over a case against Steve Bannon, former Trump adviser.
Is Merchan’s ever-expanding anti-Trump portfolio mere coincidence? His daughter Loren Merchan worked for Kamala Harris for the People in the presidential election and now runs a business dealing with the Biden political operation.
The liberal media are giving the judge glowing reviews for his work ethic and rise out of poverty and declining to question his impartiality.
With a televised trial, viewers can draw their own conclusions.
In 1965, the US Supreme Court ruled that allowing television equipment and reporters into a courtroom was so disruptive that it denied the defendant a fair trial.
But by 1981, technology had so improved that televising a trial could be done without disruption, and the Supremes reversed that ruling.
Trump’s attorney Joe Tacopina cautions that he’s planning motions to dismiss, saying perhaps he’ll succeed.
But New York lawmakers have plenty of time to legalize cameras in court, in case Trump is taken to trial.
The stakes are higher than Trump’s own assets, reputation or even freedom.
Bragg’s success would unleash political prosecutions by left-wing, George Soros-supported prosecutors across this nation.
You could be next. As Trump warned in 2019, “They’re not after me. They’re after you.”
Tell New York lawmakers to open the court to cameras.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York.
Twitter: @Betsy_McCaughey