The case against Trump raises legal questions about the relevance of the charges and the powers of the prosecutor

The case against Donald Trump that started this Tuesday in New York with the reading of thirty charges is going to be fast.

And its probable outcome, a trial with the tycoon sitting on the bench, may coincide with the Republican primaries for the 2024 presidential elections. Trump in Manhattan court is set for December 4, and prosecutors have asked the judge to set the trial for January, a month before the

of Iowa that officially activate the presidential primaries.

That is if the lawyers of the candidate for re-election do not manage to knock down the case that, in their opinion, is a house of cards: the statement of charges presented on Tuesday by the Manhattan Prosecutor's Office, 34 crimes for falsifying commercial records to conceal payments that hushed up alleged extramarital affairs.

This is not the only case facing Trump.

Not even the most dangerous.

Alvin Bragg, the first African-American incumbent for the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, is wading into troubled legal waters with few precedents.

For the defense, this unknown, in addition to the alleged weakness of the charges, is the main asset.

The experts do not agree about the potential seriousness of the accusation: while some see areas of shadow, others celebrate his courage.

The crux of the matter is whether the New York state law tycoon's violation (falsifying accounting entries to hide bribes paid to porn actress Stormy Daniels, a former Playboy model

and a Trump Tower janitor) involved another crime, the violation of federal laws such as those that regulate campaign financing.

Bragg has no federal jurisdiction and the jump between one and the other is, for some, an uncertain carambola.

It should be remembered that the payments were made in the last stretch of the 2016 electoral campaign, with the intention of preventing the alleged affairs of the then Republican candidate with Daniels and the former model, Karen McDougal, from coming to light, as well as buying the silence of a janitor at Trump Tower, the headquarters of the family emporium in Manhattan.

The goal was to keep his presidential aspirations intact.

Serious crimes

All 34 charges against Trump are class E felonies, the lowest category of felony in New York.

With each carrying a maximum sentence of four years in prison, Trump would theoretically face a total of 136 years in prison.

Falsifying business records is generally considered a misdemeanor unless the fraud is used to commit a second offense—an alleged campaign rule violation—in which case it would become a felony.

But was the hypothetical violation of the electoral financing rules a consequence, a mere coincidence or an objective?

That is, is the statement of charges upheld or can it be blown away, as Trump's lawyers suggest?

The experts Karen Friedman Agnifilo and Norman Eisen consider that "there is nothing new or weak in this case."

"The books and records charges exposed in the charging documents against Mr. Trump are the bread and butter of the prosecutor's office," they wrote this Wednesday in

.

The filing of false documentation to cover up campaign finance violations is common in New York, so the case against Trump would have a good chance of success.

Another columnist in the same newspaper opines, however, that "despite all the hype on Tuesday, [Trump] can still wriggle out of this bind."

Also among Republicans, criticism of what they consider a judicial ordeal proliferates, while Democrats stand out.

"The prosecutor's [Bragg] overreach sets a dangerous precedent for criminalizing political opponents and damages the public's faith in our judicial system," said Republican Sen. Mitt Romney, a well-known Trump critic.

William Barr, who was attorney general to the Republican president, called the allegations of voter fraud "a complete lie" and the prosecution a "pathetically weak case."

For Andrew McCabe, whom Trump fired as deputy director of the FBI in the final stretch of his presidency, the impeachment is a "fiasco."

Most of the voices agree that the substance of the charges against the former president is both humiliating and serious, which does not exempt the process from risks.

The jurisdiction of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office is New York, with all its financial dimension.

That means he routinely investigates complex white-collar cases, such as the 2014 BNP Paribas international scandal, and others involving high-profile individuals, such as the recent case against Allen Weisselberg, former Trump Organization CFO, tried and convicted. for an intricate plot of tax fraud.

But the next step of the prosecution, showing that the crimes imputed to Trump are even more serious, falls squarely into the territory of the wire.

The fact that the plot mounted by Trump with the help of lawyer Michael Cohen and the former editor of the

tabloid to bury any scandal likely to ruin his political career proves the existence of a conspiracy, as the statement of charges points out, is not guarantee of success.

Trump, who pleaded not guilty to all charges Tuesday, is the 30th accused of falsifying accounting by Bragg since he took office in January 2022, after winning the Democratic primary on a platform focused on bail reform and probation, a hot potato in New York, and no Trump in his sights.

Bragg, a 49-year-old Harlem resident, has filed 151 such charges so far.

In fact, the conviction of the Trump Organization and Weisselberg's guilty plea also included crimes of accounting falsification.

Those charged to the magnate are 11 charges for false invoices, 11 for false checks and stubs, and 12 for false entries in the accounting books.

The Trump Organization recorded as "legal fees" the then-president's refund checks to Cohen,

In Bragg's recitals, the false records cover up "attempts to violate state and federal election laws," the prosecutor specified Tuesday.

It would not be the first time a New York prosecutor has won a case involving forging documents to cover up campaign finance violations.

According to experts, there are precedents for state authorities that can apply state legislation in cases involving federal candidates, as was the case with Trump.

The payment to Daniels, of 130,000 dollars (about 120,000 euros), exceeds the limits of contributions to federal campaigns.

Trump on Tuesday became one of the estimated 31,000 people charged with felonies in the gloomy New York State courthouses each year on the 15th floor of 100 Center Street.

Unlike the rest of the inmates, for the tycoon it was a different experience, in the wings of a caravan of vehicles with tinted windows and a colossal display of

.

Without handcuffs, without spending a minute in one of the cells where the detainees wait, his was a quick, almost painless process.

The laws that New York applies to him will be the same as for the rest, although his interpretation may be new.

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