Patterico at The Dispatch: A Modest Case for the Case Against Donald Trump

Here's where you can get the stuff they cut out!

Above: Donald Trump swears he did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Daniels, and he needs to go back to work for the American people.

The good folks at The Dispatch have published my 4,400 word analysis of the Trump indictment. I’m very happy with the way it came out. The piece is free for all to read; you need only set up a free Dispatch account, which is accomplished in seconds.

In the piece, I go through the charges and the possible evidence Bragg might present in support of those charges. I also offer a rebuttal to some of the specific arguments raised by critics of the indictment.

I am somewhat more sanguine about Alvin Bragg’s prospects for this case than most. You might have noticed that there are many, many critics of the indictment, from both the right and the left. I’m not one of them. (Interestingly, New York state practitioners tend to view the indictment in a more positive light.) As such, my piece offers something of a contrarian viewpoint. I don’t say the indictment is strong, necessarily—just that it might be. Here’s an excerpt from the conclusion of my piece:

The strength of this indictment will depend, as criminal cases so often do, on the quality of the evidence. Does Bragg have David Pecker lined up to implicate Trump? If so, good. Do text messages and emails and similar documentary evidence corroborate Pecker and Cohen? Even better! Do several other witnesses—perhaps lawyers brought in to negotiate the various deals, for example—have anything to add? Still better! Will Allen Weisselberg flip? I doubt it—but if he did, that could be the cherry on top of this prosecutorial sundae.

It’s tough to tell what Bragg really has, based on his statement of what he thinks he has. But the one thing we know is that this is not an obvious assault on the rule of law. Disagree with it if you like. Chip away at the evidence, by all means. But, contrary to what some of Trump’s most ardent supporters are claiming, Stalinism has not yet come to the United States in the form of this indictment, from what I can tell.

If you’re a regular reader of this Substack, I know what you’re probably thinking: 4,400 words? Surely you had more to say than that! Where’s the rest of it?

You’re right. I gave them about 6,000 words or so. The Dispatch editors are fantastic. I’m pleased that they left so much in there, and their edits made the piece tighter and more appropriate to a general audience.

But if you’re subscribing to this Substack, you like to go deep. And while the 4,400 words at The Dispatch go pretty danged deep, I figured I’d use this newsletter to present you with a few extra tidbits. Some of them are thoughts I have had since the piece came out. But many of these tidbits were contained in the original version of the piece, but deemed less central to the main thrust of the argument.

For example, in the piece I discussed at length the possibility that David Pecker, the AMI CEO whose National Enquirer publication bought and killed stories unfavorable to Trump, could be a critical witness for Bragg. In that connection, the original version of my piece pointed out something that was cut from the final version: when Pecker was granted immunity to speak with federal prosecutors in 2018, the Wall Street Journal reported that Pecker had “shared details” about “Mr. Trump’s knowledge of the deals” in question:

In exchange for immunity, Mr. Pecker, CEO of American Media, Inc., has met with prosecutors and shared details about payments Mr. Cohen arranged in an effort to silence two women who alleged sexual encounters with Mr. Trump, including Mr. Trump’s knowledge of the deals, some of the people said.

Hmmmm!!!! And then there’s the meeting in the Oval Office.