The Challenge of Convicting Trump: Insights from Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has brought 34 felony counts of falsifying business records against former President Donald Trump, alleging that he repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal criminal conduct that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election. The indictment is far more serious than Trump and his advisers expected, but it is filled with potential problems for prosecutors. Federal election law on the question of whether so-called hush money payments constitute a crime is far from settled, and it is not clear that Bragg can seek to prosecute a federal campaign law violation in the first place or that New York state election law would even apply to a candidate for federal office.