Pundits are asking how Trump’s indictment will impact the 2024 election, pointing to the reputed millions he has received from supporters in the wake of the Stormy Daniels charges. But maybe they are asking about the wrong contest — perhaps they’re too focused on the presidential election?
Could it be that the prosecution isn’t really about Trump at all (and certainly not about Daniels) but more likely about Alvin Bragg’s attempt to knock Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Bronx/Queens) off her perch as the likely candidate to challenge New York Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand for her Senate seat next year?
With six of 10 of those asked by CNN saying they approved of the Trump prosecution, win or lose — Bragg is already winning. Those approving included almost all Democrats, 21% of Republicans, and 60% of independents, all of whom might be convinced to transfer their support of the prosecution to the actual prosecutor.
Meanwhile, AOC has been playing it coy when it comes to actually declaring her intentions, which only improves Bragg’s chances for the spot. She has also been keeping mum with the media.
When asked recently about whether she should challenge Gillibrand — who announced her re-election campaign in January — AOC opted to demur rather than properly respond. She laughingly told her two Politico interviewers, “Don’t ask me that question,” before telling them to “print that” response. This kind of banter is hardly the type that rallies voters into the poll booths.
For the moment, Republican politicians have refused to speak publicly against Trump and many potential voters continue to support him both with generous fundraising and at noisy rallies. But it may be equally likely that progressive Democrats will unite behind Bragg if he’s ultimately able to bring down Trump – or at least make a convincing performance at trial.
Bragg is likely to have financial support, too. Despite accusations and denials to the contrary, it seems that Bragg’s campaign for DA did receive indirect support from George Soros, who in May 2021 steered $1 million to the progressively-minded PAC Color of Change. Even The New York Times described the $1 million as “intended to help Mr. Bragg.”
What’s more, Soros’ son, Jonathan Soros, and daughter-in-law, Jennifer Allan Soros, directly contributed another $10,000 each to Bragg’s campaign. And considering the entire Soros family’s well-known antipathy to Trump, it is likely they would continue to contribute to Bragg after a successful prosecution of the former president.
While this indictment appears to be a political move, Bragg has yet to give legs to the theory that he might run for Senate. He announced his candidacy for Manhattan DA two years before the primary. If he is thinking of challenging Gillibrand, his silence represents a clear strategy shift.
Which is neither here nor there. But prosecuting Trump certainly reinforces the basis of his candidacy; when he announced his candidacy for DA back in 2019, he told the New York Amsterdam News, “I’m running because far too often, we have two standards of justice — one for the rich and powerful and connected and another for everyone else.”
Bragg grew up in Harlem and attended Manhattan’s prestigious and expensive Trinity School; in 1995 the Harvard Crimson called him “the anointed one,” with Dean of Students Archie C. Epps noting that, based on his observations of earlier Harvard political talent, he believed Bragg should consider elective politics because he was a perfect example of a cross-over politician who could win both black and white voters.
Legal pundits don’t think Bragg has the best case against Trump; they’ve drawn parallels to the 2008 case against former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC), who paid to silence his mistress Rielle Hunter while chasing the Democratic presidential nomination.
Three years later, he was charged with federal campaign finance violations for having hidden the affair by using donor money that should have been reported to the Federal Election Commission.
After a six-week trial – that was salacious but didn’t attract anywhere near the attention that a Trump trial would – a North Carolina jury acquitted Edwards on one count and failed to reach a verdict on five others (the Justice Department subsequently dropped the case).
By the time of trial, Edwards was well out of the public eye; he wasn’t a former president nor was he a declared candidate for the next presidential election.
For those eager to see Trump felled for good, it might have been better to wait for the other criminal cases possibly looming against him.
There is the federal investigation into his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attempted takeover of the Capitol. And then there is the Georgia case, where Fulton County DA Fani Willis is looking into Trump’s failed attempt to overturn the state’s 2020 election results from.
These cases, about possible attempts to circumvent the democratic process, seem more important than a tawdry sex scandal. But then again, maybe the New York case is, at least to DA Bragg and his followers, about a lot more than sex. We’ll have to see if the Democrats mount a New York senatorial primary to learn more.
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Dorothy Moses Schulz is an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute’s policing and public safety initiative, an emerita professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY.