Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who has indicted former President Donald Trump, is following a well-trod Democratic playbook.
Just ask former Rep. Tom DeLay, who nearly two decades ago was the Trumpian figure at the core of the conservative movement, using his post as House majority leader to take conservative ideas and forge them into election-winning GOP policies.
That is, until a crusading district attorney brought iffy legal charges, knocking Mr. DeLay out of his post. He would eventually be convicted, then have the conviction tossed out on appeal by a nearly unanimous state appeals court.
But by then, Mr. DeLay had been taken off the field, which he said is the real point of this kind of prosecution.
“This is a concerted, created political strategy that’s been going on a long time,” Mr. DeLay told The Washington Times by telephone. “What they do is they either get you on ethics charges or they get you indicted by a rogue DA. They want you to be convicted, but each step along the way it’s bad press.”
Mr. Trump was indicted last week by a grand jury that Mr. Bragg empaneled in New York. The former president is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday.
Mr. Trump is the first former president to face criminal charges.
Legal experts have questioned the underpinnings of Mr. Bragg’s case, which according to all indications is based on a claim that the former president’s hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign violated federal campaign finance laws.
The skeptical experts point out that both federal prosecutors and Mr. Bragg’s predecessor as Manhattan district attorney took a pass on the case.
Mr. DeLay said he knows all about that.
Ronnie Earle, the district attorney in Travis County, Texas, got a first indictment against Mr. DeLay on a charge that wasn’t even against the law in 2002, when Mr. DeLay was supposed to have violated it. Mr. Earle then asked a second grand jury to indict, but it refused.
Mr. Earle kept that secret while he rushed to get a third grand jury, newly sworn in, to indict on money laundering and conspiracy charges stemming from how a political action committee managed its money in the 2002 election.
SEE ALSO: Trump brings in new lead defense attorney in hush money case
Mr. Earle eventually got his conviction. But an appeals court eviscerated the conviction, finding that Mr. DeLay’s PAC did in fact try to comply with the law.
Elliot Berke, who was Mr. DeLay’s general counsel when he was majority leader, said the prosecution was “an absolute travesty of justice.”
“Earle knew that DeLay would have to step down as majority leader upon indictment,” Mr. Berke said. “Even though the case was thrown out on appeal, the damage to DeLay’s political career was done.”
He added: “From what we know so far about the Trump indictment, it appears to be based on seven-year-old facts that were shopped around various prosecutors at the federal and state level – all of whom passed.”
That Mr. DeLay was eventually exonerated isn’t surprising — and it’s a caution to those who believe Mr. Trump should serve prison time. The truth is, that rarely happens in high-profile political prosecutions.
Before he took on Mr. DeLay, Earle — who passed away in 2020 — also indicted Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison for campaign finance actions. He would lose that case in fashion as just minutes into the trial, a judge ordered the jury to acquit her.
Federal prosecutors charged the late Sen. Ted Stevens with illegally accepting gifts. He was convicted in 2008. A judge tossed the conviction a year later after revelations of severe Justice Department malfeasance in the case, but by then Stevens had already lost re-election.
He died in a plane crash in 2010.
A year later a full report would detail just how egregious the Justice Department’s misdeeds were in tainting his trial.
The group that prodded Earle to charge Mr. DeLay was Texans for Public Justice. The organization did not respond to an email seeking comment on comparisons to the Trump case.
Mr. DeLay said the prosecutions don’t happen randomly.
“They strategize and organize and build coalitions,” he said. “They pick a target and then they go find a crime to indict him with.”
He said the strategy usually involves going after staffers, with prosecutors pressing them to take a deal and turn state’s evidence to try to bolster the case against the chief target.
The point, he said, is to wrap the target up in legal distractions, lawyers’ bills and bad press.
For Mr. DeLay, under the rules of the House GOP, he had to step down from the majority leader’s post once he was indicted. Future Speaker John A. Boehner took over the post.
Mr. DeLay said his loss at the trial court wasn’t surprising, given the leanings of the Travis County jury pool. He said he figured he’d need to get to the appellate level to get a fair shake.
The same may be true of Mr. Trump, who would go on trial in liberal Manhattan, which Mr. DeLay called “the worst place in the world to be tried as a conservative Republican.”
“Things are not going to go well for him,” Mr. DeLay predicted. Mr. Trump and his lawyers say they want a change of venue to more conservative-leaning Staten Island.
Mr. DeLay said it cost him more than $12 million to fight the case. He said he’s still got bills he’s paying from it.
Mr. Trump should have no problem paying his legal fees. His own wealth aside, it’s likely his supporters will be eager to foot his bill.
Mr. DeLay said Mr. Trump also has another advantage: his ability to use social media to battle in the court of public opinion, going around the television networks and major national news organizations.
Republican voters are already giving Mr. Trump a vote of approval, if early opinion polling is a guide.
Mr. Berke, now at his own law firm Berke Farah LLP, served as associate independent counsel for Ken Starr and Robert Ray during their investigation into President Clinton. He contrasted that with the handling of Mr. Trump’s case.
“In high profile political corruption cases like this, a fair-minded prosecutor always looks to the best way to serve justice,” he said. “When I worked for Independent Counsel Bob Ray, we were ultimately able to bring the Clinton matter to an end with a reasonable settlement that avoided the former president’s prosecution. Justice was served, and the American people were spared what would have been a painful political circus.”
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.