Shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of former President Donald Trump's immunity defense, the ball started rolling on his side of the legal bench.
According to an NBC News opinion piece penned by Catherine Christian, former assistant district attorney in the New York County District Attorney’s Office, Trump's attorneys are taking "full advantage" of the immunity ruling.
She filed the high court's immunity decision as another "delay tactic" for Trump and his lawyers to push trials out to where they're held after the November election.
One example was Trump's sentencing in the New York verdict, which was supposed to happen last week, but was delayed as the court considers the immunity decision's ramifications.
Christian also noted that last week, Trump's lawyers have already moved to vacate the felony charges.
She wrote:
"This motion was not a surprise. New York Criminal Procedure Law 330.30 allows a defendant to request that the trial judge set aside the guilty verdict at 'any time after rendition of a verdict of guilty and before sentence.' The grounds for doing so are limited, but within hours of the Supreme Court decision, Trump’s lawyers told Judge Juan Merchan in a letter that Trump’s conviction should be set aside."
The high court's immunity ruling covers "official acts," and while the ruling was seemingly exclusive to the classified documents probe, Trump's lawyers argue that it also applies to the New York verdict.
Christian wrote:
However, Trump’s lawyers are arguing that evidence was shown during his trial that included White House “official acts." This evidence, Trump's legal team says, “should never have been put before the jury.”
The key debate now is the language used for the immunity ruling and determining which acts were "official acts" and subject to the ruling.
Christian added, "Merchan will need to parse through these various actions and determine which, if any, should be entitled to absolute or presumptive immunity."
Trump's lawyers have scored many legal victories in recent months, mostly in the way of delaying trials until after the November election.
Those are huge wins, as if Trump wins in November, his appointed Attorney General can quash any charges and completely kill cases against him, or Trump can use his executive powers to pardon himself and others involved.
So far, Trump has only gained in the polls and overall popularity as a result of the cases against him, as many Americans are sympathetic with Trump's plight with the justice system.
Legal experts believe that Trump's legal issues, especially if he wins, will quickly dwindle.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Female athletes are asking the Supreme Court to provide fairness in their competitions, by preventing more physical men from competing against them.
The announcement comes from the ADF, which is working on several cases involving the Biden administration's transgender agenda, in which Joe Biden and his bureaucrats are demanding that a man who says he is a woman is qualified to compete in women's sports.
The ADF explained, "The states of West Virginia and Idaho, together with attorneys from Alliance Defending Freedom, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the cases of female athletes who are seeking to protect women's sports."
One case is B.P.J. v West Virginia State Board of Education and there West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and ADF are asking the Supreme Court to hear their case after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit undermined West Virginia's ability to protect fairness in women's sports.
The other is Hecox v. Little, where Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador and ADF are asking the high court to uphold their state's Fairness in Women's Sports Act after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit acted to prevent enforcement.
"Back in April, the 4th Circuit handed down a 2-1 ruling that reversed an earlier decision upholding West Virginia's Save Women's Sports Act. I promised back then that I would keep fighting for the safety, well-being, and fairness in women's sports, and now I'm keeping that promise. We are confident in the merits of our defense of this constitutionally permissible law, which through and through complies with Title IX and the Constitution—that's why we are taking this to the Supreme Court. West Virginia's law protects fairness and safety for girls and women in sports. It's really that simple," Morrisey explained.
"Idaho is committed to ensuring that our women and girls get a fair shot on and off the field. While we've been fighting for fair and equal athletic competition, activists have been pushing a radical agenda that will ultimately sideline women and girls. Many athletic associations around the world have seen the obvious truth that men are naturally stronger and would create a dangerous, unfair environment for women to showcase their incredible talent in sports. We are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold our law and ensure that women and girls get the opportunities they deserve," added Labrador.
The B.P.J. petition charges, "Madison [Kenyon] and Mary [Marshall] are the tip of the iceberg. From 2017 through 2019, two Connecticut male high-school athletes who identify as female broke 17 track records, took 13 girls' state championship titles, and deprived girls of more than 68 opportunities to advance to higher-level competitions—opportunities that otherwise would have gone to females."
The Hecox case explains, "Last term, two justices said it would be appropriate for the court to get involved at the emergency-relief stage. The case for the court's involvement now is even more compelling. The 4th Circuit has set out its fractured analysis. And so long as this decision stands, 25 state laws on these issues are in doubt. That doubt irreparably damages safe and fair athletic competition. As each sports season comes and goes, more girls will lose the benefits of safe and fair play. But those girls shouldn't have to wait."
In B.P.J., a middle-school male athlete competing on a West Virginia girls' track team finished ahead of almost 300 girls in three years in cross-country and track-and-field events.
In the second case, Kenyon and Marshall, who ran track and cross-country at Idaho State University, are defending Idaho's women's sports law alongside the state. The two women are long-time athletes who are well familiar with the differences in strength, speed, and stamina between comparably gifted and trained male and female athletes.
With his lawfare campaign against former President Donald Trump faltering at every turn, Special Counsel Jack Smith has asked a federal judge to cut him a significant break.
As The Hill reports, Smith last week requested that Judge Aileen Cannon, currently overseeing Trump's classified documents case, reject consideration of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' concurrence in the presidential immunity dispute, suggesting it has no bearing on the matter.
At issue for Smith is a concurrence authored by Thomas in the recent 6-3 decision concerning presidential immunity.
As Newsweek noted, the majority of the high court acknowledged the existence of broad immunity for “official” presidential acts and remanded Trump's election interference case back to the lower court for factual determinations about the conduct in question.
It was in Thomas' concurrence to that outcome that an issue was raised, and which has since become a key point of contention for Trump's legal team.
In his opinion, Thomas declared, “No former president has faced criminal prosecution for his acts while in office in the more than 200 years since the founding of our country. And that is so despite numerous past presidents taking actions that many would argue constitute crimes.”
Thomas went on, “If this unprecedented prosecution is to proceed, it must be conducted by someone duly authorized to do so by the American people. The lower courts should thus answer these essential questions concerning the special counsel's appointment before proceeding.”
The concerns voiced by Thomas have been echoed by former Attorney General Ed Meese who, together with law professors Gary Lawson and Steven Calabresi, filed an amicus brief with the high court contending that Attorney General Merrick Garland's appointment of Smith as special counsel ran afoul of the Constitution's Appointments Clause.
In their brief, the men argued that as a private citizen, Smith was not eligible for appointment to the role given to him by Garland.
“Not clothed in the authority of the federal government, Smith is a modern example of the naked emperor,” they wrote.
The legal scholars added that no statute or constitutional provision “remotely authorized the appointment by the Attorney General of a private citizen to receive extraordinary criminal law enforcement power under the title of Special Counsel.”
In that vein, Trump's lawyers used the immunity decision and Thomas' concurrence to argue that the documents case should be paused with regard to both the immunity issue as well as to the justice's concerns about the legitimacy of Smith's appointment.
Smith, unsurprisingly, has asked Cannon to ignore Thomas' words and to proceed with the documents case as originally planned.
Though the special counsel contended that Thomas' claim was irrelevant to the classified documents controversy and said that Trump did not initially raise it as a concern, it remains to be seen whether Cannon will see things differently, as Trump's team hopes she does.
If you've been waiting for the ability to distill spirits in your bathtub, your time has finally come.
According to the Daily Caller, thanks to a federal judge who just shot down a longstanding law that prohibited making your own moonshine in the bathtub, we're free to do as we please on that front.
Judge Mark Pittman said the law exceeded Congress' power, "holding that neither Congress’ tax power nor its ability to regulate interstate commerce justify the ban.'
Homebrewing beer has been legal since President Jimmy Carter signed it into law in 1978, but distilling spirits at home remained illegal.
The judge explained why he believed that distilling spirits at home is not something that Congress can control.
"Indeed, the Constitution is written to prevent societal amnesia of the defined limits it places on this government of and by the people," Pittman wrote. "That is where the judiciary must declare when its coequal branches overstep their Constitutional authority. Congress has done so here."
Late last night, after months of litigation, a federal court in Texas decided the federal ban on at-home distillation of beverage spirits is unconstitutional. The district court’s decision is fair; it is correct on the law; and it is historic. https://t.co/Chyo78AA8Z
— Competitive Enterprise Institute (@ceidotorg) July 11, 2024
The Daily Caller noted:
The Hobby Distillers Association, an organization that includes over 1,300 members, filed a lawsuit against the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TBB) and Department of Justice (DOJ) in December to challenge the ban. Competitive Enterprise Institute General Counsel Dan Greenberg, who represented the plaintiffs, said in a statement that the ruling is “a victory for personal freedoms and for federalism.”
The association added, "We’re pleased to see that the court determined that the home distilling ban is unconstitutional – and that it blocked enforcement of the ban against our clients,” Greenberg said.
"More broadly, the court’s decision reminds us that, as Americans, we live under a government of limited powers."
Users across social media generally reacted positively to the news.
"George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, both home distillers, approve," one X user wrote.
Another X user wrote, "Government doesn't endow us with rights, it prunes those we were born with. Got a branch back. Hoozah!"
The government will have 14 days to file an emergency appeal, according to the ruling.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland is under pressure to fire one of his top employees after it was revealed that she lied during her Senate confirmation hearing.
According to Breitbart, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Kristen Clarke "lied under oath and made efforts to cover up a past arrest during her confirmation fight in 2021."
That revelation caused several Republicans to call for her firing, including Sen. Tom Cotton (R-MO).
Cotton wrote a letter to AG Garland demanding that he fire Clarke for misreporting her criminal past.
"During her nomination to her current role, Ms. Clarke was asked if she had ‘ever been arrested for or accused of committing a violent crime against any person,'" the letter reads. "Ms. Clarke was unequivocal, responding under oath to the Senate Judiciary Committee, 'No.'"
"That was a lie," the letter read.
"Ms. Clarke has now admitted that she was arrested in 2006 for attacking and injuring someone with a knife. It has also recently come to light that, shortly before the full Senate voted on her nomination, Ms. Clarke and her publicist contacted the man she attacked in an attempt to cover up her false testimony," the letter continued.
NEW: @TomCottonAR calls on AG Garland to fire Kristen Clarke following our @DailySignal reporting:
“I call for Ms. Clarke’s immediate termination and removal from office.” pic.twitter.com/XbqUBp9OjO
— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) July 12, 2024
Clarke issued a statement to CNN defending her past, arguing that she wasn't required to disclose it because it had been wiped from her record.
"Clarke acknowledged that she was arrested in her statement on Wednesday but said the arrest was expunged – meaning it was removed from her record and no longer exists – and that she wasn’t required to disclose it," the exclusive statement to CNN said.
Social media users reacted to Cotton's demand for her firing.
"Garland has made it known that he and his office will not be accountable to Congress, so rave on to no avail," on X user wrote.
Another X user wrote, "Hmm, aren’t there a couple of SCOTUS justices that lied during their confrontations?"
Only time will tell if AG Garland complies, but it's highly doubtful he'll follow the demands of a Repblican senator.
Far-left House Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY.) is filing articles of impeachment against Supreme Court justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
The charges repackage familiar talking points about the justices, whom Democrats have broadly accused of corruption. There is little chance the impeachment articles will advance in the Republican House.
The impeachment threat escalates a left-wing campaign to discredit the conservative Supreme Court, which ended its most recent term by handing President Trump a huge legal victory in its ruling on presidential immunity.
In sweeping language, AOC claims that Thomas and Alito committed "high crimes and misdemeanors" by failing to disclose certain gifts from conservative billionaires.
The charges also accuse the justices of wrongdoing by failing to recuse themselves from January 6th cases.
Liberals have sought to tie Thomas to the January 6th riot over his wife's role in the "Stop the Steal" protest movement, and Alito has faced similar backlash over flags that his wife flew - an inverted American flag and an "Appeal to Heaven" flag - that were displayed by some January 6th participants.
The impeachment articles accuse Alito of harboring "a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party in cases before the court," and Thomas is similarly accused of failing to recuse himself from cases where his wife had financial and legal "interests."
In a breathless statement, Ocasio-Cortez decried an "unchecked corruption crisis on the Supreme Court."
"Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito’s pattern of refusal to recuse from consequential matters before the court in which they hold widely documented financial and personal entanglements constitutes a grave threat to American rule of law, the integrity of our democracy, and one of the clearest cases for which the tool of impeachment was designed."
A handful of Democrats are backing AOC's longshot proposal, including New York's Jamaal Bowman, who recently lost his seat in a primary.
The Supreme Court ended its term with a historic ruling affirming that presidents have broad immunity from prosecution. The ruling was a huge blow to Democratic efforts to prosecute Trump before the 2024 presidential election.
Supreme Court justices serve for life during good behavior. Only one Supreme Court justice has been impeached before, Samuel Chase, in 1804, for "arbitrary and oppressive conduct of trials," but he was acquitted by the Senate.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
President Trump's legal team has gone to an appeals court to try to obtain an order removing prosecutor Fani Willis from her "organized crime" case she created against Trump and more than a dozen others over their criticism of the handling of the 2020 election results.
Already, a judge has determined she had the "odor of mendacity" about her because of the appearance of misconduct and an inherent conflict of interest.
But the judge said she could continue on the case if her paramour, whom she had hired with tax money to work on the anti-Trump agenda, left.
Trump's lawyers are in the Georgia Court of Appeals explaining that simply isn't enough to make the case clean again.
And now they're being joined by a prominent legal team, the voices of the American Center for Law and Justice.
That organization announced it has filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the appeals court calling for Willis to be removed from the case entirely.
The legal team noted the court has agreed to review the allegations against the prosecutor, and it is arguing for a determination she must go entirely because of her "gross misconduct.'
The organization explained, "As we told you when the trial judge's decision on Fani Willis first came out, the judge's ruling made simply no sense. The judge found as fact that Fani Willis' conduct had an 'appearance of impropriety,' based on her relationship with Nathan Wade. Nonetheless, the judge allowed Willis to proceed with the prosecution anyway. The facts are clear that Willis must be disqualified from overseeing the high-profile election interference case against President Trump."
The ACLJ listed the facts:
"Willis appointed her alleged romantic partner, Nathan Wade, as a special prosecutor – paying him over $650,000 in taxpayer money.
"She appears to have benefited personally from this appointment, taking lavish vacations funded by Wade's earnings from the case.
"Willis and Wade seemingly attempted to conceal their relationship, only admitting to it after being cornered by evidence."
What's present in the situation appears to be "corruption, cronyism, and abuse of power," the ACLJ said.
"How can the people of Georgia – or indeed, all Americans – have any faith in the integrity and impartiality of this prosecution? The Constitution guarantees the right to a fair trial, free from conflicts of interest or impropriety. Willis' actions have irreparably tainted this case," the ACLJ argues.
The lawyers noted, "The mere appearance of such misconduct is sufficient grounds for disqualification under Georgia law and ethical standards. We emphasized that even an appearance of impropriety is inherently unacceptable and erodes the public's trust in the judicial process. In the present case, merely stopping the continuation of the 'repeatedly'-made 'bad choices' by removing Nathan Wade is not enough."
The taint that attaches to the case through such conflicts cannot be corrected or remedied "after the fact," the brief argues.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas raised questions about special counsel Jack Smith's appointment that could undermine his case against former President Donald Trump, MSNBC reported. In a recent concurrent opinion on Trump's immunity defense, Thomas said he doubts the constitutionality of Smith's appointment at all.
The high court's decision on presidential immunity earlier this month has already eased some of Trump's legal woes in his election interference case. Now, Judge Aileen Cannon, who is overseeing his classified documents case, could ease up on Trump as well.
Opening the door to examine Smith's position could give Trump's defense team another arrow in its quiver. Thomas had raised the question about Smith's appointment during oral arguments in April but officially called it into question with his recent opinion.
If there's no validity to Smith's appointment, it could undermine the entire investigation. "I write separately to highlight another way in which this prosecution may violate our constitutional structure," Thomas explained in his concurring opinion.
Thomas explained his reasoning for objecting to Smith in the context of the immunity question before him. "In this case, there has been much discussion about ensuring that a President ‘is not above the law,'" Thomas wrote, according to Fox News.
"But, as the Court explains, the President’s immunity from prosecution for his official acts is the law. The Constitution provides for ‘an energetic executive’ because such an Executive is ‘essential to… the security of liberty,'" Thomas continued.
"Respecting the protections that the Constitution provides for the Office of the Presidency secures liberty. In that same vein, the Constitution also secures liberty by separating the powers to create and fill offices," Thomas explained.
"And, there are serious questions whether the Attorney General has violated that structure by creating an office of the Special Counsel that has not been established by law," which Thomas said "must be answered before this prosecution can proceed." Thomas added that the attorney general "purported to appoint a private citizen as Special Counsel to prosecute a former President on behalf of the United States."
However, Thomas now doubts Smith's appointment has been ‘established by Law,’ as the Constitution requires," which provides "an important check against the President – he cannot create offices at his pleasure," Thomas said. "If there is no law establishing the office that the Special Counsel occupies, then he cannot proceed with this prosecution," Thomas concluded.
Thomas noted that Trump is the only former president who "has faced criminal prosecution for his acts while in office in the more than 200 years since the founding of our country," even as others have engaged in possible crimes. "If this unprecedented prosecution is to proceed, it must be conducted by someone duly authorized to do so by the American people," Thomas wrote.
If Smith's appointment was unconstitutional in the first place, then the classified documents case against Trump falls like a house of cards. There are already signs this is happening already based on the immunity question alone, The Hill reported.
Last week, Cannon granted the defense team's request to delay court deadlines so that prosecutors could review the case more thoroughly in light of the Supreme Court's immunity decision. Cannon has yet to rule on Smith's appointment but noted the precedent supports it.
However, the Washington Post reported that she also allowed outside groups to make the case against it before issuing her ruling, which is an extraordinary move. Perhaps this signals that the validity of Smith's appointment is still an open question in her courtroom.
Those who wish to see Trump behind bars will do anything to make it happen. Unfortunately for them, their zeal to get him has led to some missteps that could undermine the entirety of their prosecution.
In a significant legal confrontation, conservative states have approached the Supreme Court to block a new federal initiative aimed at student debt relief, Courthouse News Service reported.
These states argue that President Biden's debt relief plan, set to commence in August under the SAVE program, bypasses congressional authority and conflicts with past Supreme Court decisions.
The coalition, led by South Carolina, Alaska, and Texas, filed an emergency application on Tuesday. Their target is the impending launch of the Saving on Valuable Education (SAVE) program, which proposes a new method of calculating student loan payments based on income and family size.
This legal challenge is not the first of its kind. Last year, a similar Biden proposal aimed at forgiving up to $20,000 per borrower was struck down by the Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision.
The SAVE plan offers potential debt cancellation for loans under $12,000 after a decade of payments, a point of contention for the suing states. They believe this program could lead to substantial financial loss for taxpayers.
In March, a group of 11 states sought to halt the program through a federal court in Kansas. However, only three states were deemed to have sufficient standing to continue the legal proceedings.
Following a preliminary injunction against the SAVE program by a lower court, the Department of Education requested the 10th Circuit Court to pause this injunction. This court action temporarily stopped payments and interest accrual for about 3 million borrowers.
The crux of the conservative states' argument lies in the major questions doctrine. This legal principle mandates congressional approval for significant policy shifts, which the states assert has been bypassed.
Joseph Spate, South Carolina's assistant deputy solicitor general, has been vocal about the administration's alleged overreach. "Due to the administration’s intransigence, the court must unfortunately step in again," he remarked in a recent filing.
He also highlighted the fiscal implications of the SAVE program, suggesting it could lead to the unauthorized cancellation of nearly half a trillion dollars in student debt.
The legal submissions by the states emphasize the program's potential cost to the public purse—hundreds of billions of dollars. They argue that this far exceeds the scope of the previously rejected plan and necessitates judicial review.
"This current attempt to unilaterally cancel debt is every bit as unlawful as the first 12-digit effort this court rejected in Nebraska," Spate added in his filings.
The states are pressing the Supreme Court to not only consider their appeal but to potentially vacate the program in its entirety or at least hear arguments during the next term.
The urgency of this matter is underscored by the state's request for a Supreme Court decision by the end of the month. This timeline highlights the immediate financial and administrative impacts they anticipate should the program proceed.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
President Donald Trump "never had a real shot at a fair trial in Manhattan," a congressional report has determined regarding the 34 count conviction District Attorney Alvin Bragg got from a leftist jury there.
The counts originally were misdemeanor business accounting offenses, but the statute of limitations had expired. Bragg turned them into zombies, bringing them back to life on the claim that they were in furtherance of another, unspecified, crime.
A new congressional report delivers the stunning verdict on Bragg, and the compromised Juan Merchan, the judge in the case.
The report from the Committee on the Judiciary and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government cited several key failings by Bragg and Merchan, whose daughter was fundraising for Democrats off her father's rulings in the courtroom.
The report cited: "Bragg’s unconstitutional and unprecedented Russian-nesting-doll theory of criminal liability, in which the jury never had to reach unanimity beyond a reasonable doubt as to each element of the criminal offenses;
"Bragg’s usurpation of the federal government’s exclusive authority to prosecute alleged violations of federal campaign finance laws and the Biden-Harris Administration’s refusal to intercede to protect federal interests; and ...
The committee explained, "President Trump never had a real shot at a fair trial in Manhattan. In a more neutral jurisdiction, where a politically ambitious prosecutor was not motivated by partisanship and a trial judge with perceived biases did not refuse to enforce a fair proceeding, President Trump would have never been found guilty. But Manhattan is anything but a neutral jurisdiction. President Trump promised to appeal, stating, 'We will fight for our constitution. This is far from over.' But the Democrats’ use of lawfare accomplished its short-term goal—it removed President Trump from the campaign trail and diverted attention away from President Biden’s missteps and failing policies."
The congressional report said Bragg's boast was that he secured a 34-count criminal indictment against President Trump that bootstrapped misdemeanor state charges for allegedly falsifying New York business records to an ambiguous, unknown federal crime to aggravate the charges to felonies.
In fact, the claims revolved around payments former Trump employee Michael Cohen made to Stephanie Clifford (also referred to as Stormy Daniels) in 2017 – essentially a hush money payment which is not illegal.
"Legal experts have detailed serious legal and constitutional deficiencies with Bragg’s politicized prosecution. First, as one legal scholar explained, even if the alleged bookkeeping irregularities 'amount[ed] to fraud crimes . . . the transactions in question could not possibly have had the slightest impact on the 2016 election. They didn’t occur until months later—specifically, from February 14 through December 5, 2017.' Second, 'even if Bragg had jurisdiction to enforce federal campaign finance law' and 'even if Bragg were correct that the ... payments were in-kind campaign contributions that had to be disclosed,' any disclosure would have been due 'several months into 2017. Again, there could not conceivably have been any impact on the 2016 election.'"
The committee began investigating last year, and said it had to go to court to obtain testimony from Mark Pomerantz, a former special assistant DA in Manhattan.
The conclusion, the committee said, was that "Bragg’s prosecution of President Trump was politically motivated, unethically and likely unlawfully focused solely on one person, and 'opened the door for future prosecutions of a former president—or current candidate—that would be widely perceived as politically motivated.'"
It actually, the report said, was "lawfare tactics" by the "highest offices in the Department of Justice."
Further, the report said, "The committee heard testimony from Federal Election Commission (FEC) Commissioner James 'Trey' E. Trainor, III who explained how Bragg's prosecution was 'a significant deviation' from a well-established legal framework as Bragg 'usurped the jurisdiction that Congress [] explicitly reserved for federal authorities.' The committee also heard from a constitutional law scholar and attorney Elizabeth Price Foley who explained in detail how the trial violated President Trump’s constitutionally protected due process rights."
The report said, "Finally, the committee heard from Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey who drew on his expertise as Missouri’s chief law enforcement officer to discuss how Bragg’s prosecution was clearly 'politically motivated and replete with legal error.' A fundamental principle of the American system of justice is that no individual is above the law. But just as important is the precept that prosecutors prosecute conduct, not individuals," the report said.
"Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, however, ran for office on a platform of investigating and prosecuting President Trump, bragging about his extensive experience suing President Trump."
The report concluded: "Every person admitted to practice law in New York, including elected district attorneys and appointed judges, must take a 'constitutional oath of office,' swearing or affirming to 'support the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the State of New York.' By taking that oath, District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Judge Juan Merchan were legally 'bound to a constitutional course of conduct.' In their politicized efforts to indict and convict President Trump, they failed their oaths of office. But neither of these faithless officials will have the last word on the travesty of justice that transpired in lower Manhattan on May 30, 2024. The testimony that the committee and select subcommittee have received makes clear that President Trump’s trial was riddled with constitutional defects—defects that should prompt the New York appellate courts to reverse the verdict."