Trump’s arrest exposes America’s Soros-style (in)justice system – Reuters

Alvin Bragg, the New York District Attorney who made a name for himself arresting Donald Trump, has triumphed in his efforts to overthrow the former president. See, the Manhattan DA said, no one’s above the law in the “commercial capital of the world”.

“Today we assume our solemn responsibility to ensure that all are equal before the law,” Bragg told reporters last week, following Trump’s settlement of 34 criminal charges. “No amount of money and no amount of power changes this enduring American principle.

So, as Bragg says, the patriotic decision to pursue Trump was all about equal justice under the law. Never mind that Bragg campaigned on a pledge to sue the locally hated ex-president in a county where Joe Biden won 86.8% votes in the 2020 presidential election. And never mind that Bragg’s 2021 campaign for the Manhattan DA job was largely funded by billionaire activist George Soros, the biggest donor to the Party’s candidates and causes. democrat.

That’s right, Bragg says his case is legally and ethically right. However, a closer look at the indictment reveals that the charges he filed are so legally dubious that only a Manhattan jury of Trump critics could buy his story. he is pursue Trump for allegedly falsifying business documents six years ago, and he is circumventing the two-year statute of limitations for such misdemeanors by elevating the charges to felonies. To make that possible under New York’s criminal code, he claims the offenses were committed to cover up violations of election laws when Trump was running for president in 2016.

These alleged violations stemmed from an alleged silent payment to a porn star who claimed to have had an affair with Trump. The payment was not illegal on its face, but if proven to have been made solely for the purpose of helping Trump win the election, it would exceed the legal limit for a political contribution. The Federal Election Commission and the US Department of Justice looked into the matter at the time and found no reason to prosecute Trump.

Even if you give Bragg the considerable benefit of the doubt regarding his motives for pursuing Trump — in the run-up to the 2024 election, with the former president being the top Republican contender — it would be hard to argue that he is motivated by the interests of justice. On the one hand, Bragg shows no interest in investigating leaks of information about Trump’s lawsuits to the media, which is itself a crime under New York law.

On the other hand, his approach to justice makes the city increasingly lawless. Bragg used his first note after taking office as AD in January 2022 to order prosecutors to stop sending so many criminals to jail and reduce charges for crimes such as armed robbery and drug trafficking. He also ordered his underlings to make sentencing recommendations that address racial disparities in incarceration – meaning the criminal’s sentence should at least partly depend on their skin color.

In Bragg’s first year as DA, 52% of felony cases referred to his office were downgraded to misdemeanors (the opposite of Trump’s charges being turned into felonies). Nearly half of the criminal cases that Bragg’s office has taken on have ended in defeat for the prosecution.

With many laws enforced lightly, if at all, crime has increased in America’s largest city and the commercial capital of the world. Auto thefts are at their highest in 16 years. There were more than 2,000 criminal assaults in January alone, up 15% a year earlier, according to police figures.

If there’s one thing Bragg seems to be really tough on — other than Republican presidential candidates — it’s self-defense. Take the case of Manhattan parking lot attendant Moussa Diarra, who woke up in a hospital earlier this month and found himself handcuffed to his bed. The 57-year-old had been shot twice by a suspected burglar. The suspect was also shot, during a fight for his weapon while the mechanic was fighting for his life.

Weeping at his predicament, Diarra reportedly said his boss, “I had bullets inside me and I’m chained to a hospital bed, but I didn’t do anything wrong.” He was charged with attempted murder and unlawful possession of a firearm – the same weapon the alleged burglar, a career criminal with more than 20 arrests on his criminal record, used to shoot him.

The charges against Diarra were later dropped,”pending further investigation, amid public outrage over the case. Diarra had to hire a lawyer, who suggested his client was initially charged because authorities had not had time to determine how the two men were shot. But police said the prosecutor’s office had ordered the mechanic’s arrest and charge.

This could be seen as an aberration, or just an unfortunate circumstance for Diarra. Maybe he was handcuffed to his hospital bed because the police couldn’t immediately discern he was a hero, rather than a perpetrator, so it was just a placeholder to charge him . This might be believable if it weren’t for Bragg’s model of trying to punish people for standing up for themselves.

Before Diarra, there was Jose Alba, a 61-year-old Dominican bodega owner who was assaulted behind the counter of his Harlem store by a 35-year-old black ex-con last July. After sitting passively and imploring the abuser, he allegedly saying “Daddy, I don’t want trouble,” Alba fought for his life as the attack escalated, stabbing the young man to death. Surveillance video of the incident shows Alba being stabbed by the attacker’s girlfriend as he fights the man.

Alba was arrested for murder and incarcerated in the notorious Rikers Island prison, where he reportedly did not even receive proper treatment for his stabbing. His bail was originally set at $250,000. Bragg eventually dropped the charge weeks later, but only after public outcry, including statements from Mayor Eric Adams and New York Police Department Commissioner Bill Bratton that Alba clearly acted in a state of self-defense. The prosecutor did not charge the girlfriend who stabbed Alba.

In another case, Bragg broke a campaign promise to drop charges against Tracy McCarter, a nurse who fatally stabbed her abusive husband, allegedly in self-defense. In other cases, he downgraded charges against serial criminals, such as a man who had nearly 90 arrests on his record and whose bail was set at just $1 after being arrested last month for two alleged thefts on the same day.

In rationalizing his policies against the enforcement of certain laws, Bragg asserted that limited resources must be freed up to focus on violent crimes. Yet under his watch, violent criminals – at least those not acting in self-defense – have been released without bail to await trial. The DA reached a plea bargain deal for a man arrested for raping a teenager, causing him to only serve 30 days in jail, but while he was out on bail and awaiting sentencing, he was sexually assaulted five other people.

However, with limited resources and a survey showing that 40% of New York City office workers are considering leaving the city due to crime issues, Bragg found time to pursue a political enemy. He does so in a case stemming from seven-year-old allegations that the most competent authorities — those who monitor federal elections — have deemed unworthy of pursuing.

Whatever happens with law enforcement in Alvin Bragg’s Manhattan, it’s not about equal justice under the law — or any kind of real justice. This type of unjust legal activism is not limited to New York either. Soros would have aid about 70 attorneys stake in victory in district attorney elections across the United States. These social justice warriors have made their cities less safe and more racist, calibrating their prosecution policies to essentially legalize certain types of crime and favor certain classes of criminals.

MSNBC political analyst Peter Beinart recently offered a leftist’s perspective on what drives Trump’s prosecution, saying that a coalition of historically discriminated groups – blacks, Jews and “LGBT people » – have “come together to repel the white Christian nationalist assault on American democracy.”

Yes, the aggrieved victim classes are so concerned with protecting democracy that they are banding together to eliminate the leading Republican presidential candidate, potentially taking him off the menu in the 2024 election if they are successful. They would like to dictate which candidates voters can choose from because, you know, democracy.

The first arrest of a former US head of state is a clown show, which some foreign leaders have been honest enough to point out. For example, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said, “Think what you will of former President Trump and why he is being charged, but just imagine if this happened in another country, where a government arrested the leading opposition candidate. United to use ‘democracy’ as foreign policy is gone.”