On Saturday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends,” George Washington University Law Professor and Fox News Contributor Jonathan Turley stated that the potential legal case against former President Donald Trump is significantly weaker than the John Edwards case and that he believes that if Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg brings charges, it would be because Bragg caved to public pressure.
Turley said, “[T]he John Edwards case, that was a much stronger case, the Department of Justice went all in, and they lost, ultimately. Because these are very difficult cases to make out. Now, you take that, and now you have the Manhattan D.A. taking a case to court that the Department of Justice declined to do…and that raises some obvious questions.”
Later, he added, “This is a claim that, not only the Justice Department didn’t pursue, but Bragg’s predecessor in his office didn’t pursue it to court. But also Bragg himself threw a flag on the play. The only reason I think we’re seeing this case is that two of his prosecutors resigned, in my view, they acted really inappropriately — in the case of one of them, who wrote a book about someone who wasn’t even charged, let alone convicted. And that pressure, I think, finally found its mark with Bragg.”
Turley also stated, “We have to keep in mind that we have a legal system here, which is designed to protect the rights of the accused. And even if he’s convicted, there are going to be significant appellate challenges and reviews. I think we have to be careful not to just assume, in the most inflammatory way, that the rule of law is dead. This is not the first D.A. who has yielded to public pressure to bring a criminal charge.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
