Let’s be very clear—what took place in that dingy courtroom in Lower Manhattan on Thursday was not a blindfolded Lady Justice with a sword submissively pointing facedown in her right hand and a scale in her left hand.
It was a courtroom full of Medusas with eyes pierced wide open, a sharpened samurai sword pointing viciously at the defense for six weeks—with a scale that had been chucked into the bottom of the East River—resting 80 feet below, near the Brooklyn Bridge bedrock.
And if Donald J. Trump and his defense team so much as looked anywhere in the judge or the prosecutors’ general vicinity, they might as well have turned to stone.
This was a Stalinist show trial with a predetermined outcome, brought forth by a corrupt, radical George Soros funded prosecutor who campaigned on “getting Trump”—overseen by an equally corrupt and conflicted Trump hating judge who donated to Joe Biden’s campaign in 2020 and whose daughter works for a Democrat political campaign firm that raised $93 million off of the Trump trial.
This was not a case that was decided by a “jury of peers” but rather by a leftist-leaning jury in one of the most Democrat-heavy districts in the country.
Some might say the fix was in.
It didn’t so much matter that this imagined crime had never been used before to prosecute anyone, let alone a former president and leading candidate in the 2024 race for the White House.
Trump never stood a chance in that lion’s den.
After the verdict was handed out, Alvin Bragg claimed that “he did his job.”
This is the same Bragg who wrote an infamous “Day One” memo to his staff upon taking office, which, in Orwellian fashion, has since been scrubbed from the internet, stating that his new policies “reflect both the need for fundamental reforms in the criminal legal system and the need for community safety.”
In his memo, Bragg promised to completely dissolve Manhattan’s Conviction Integrity Unit and replace it with a “Free the Wrongfully Convicted Unit.” Bragg’s memo also stated that in almost all instances, fare evasion, trespassing, driving with a suspended license, traffic violations, prostitution, and resisting arrest should no longer be prosecuted.
Apparently, in New York City, there is no crime that is worthy of jail time—unless your name is Donald Trump.
Every objective human being who doesn’t suffer from a case of Trump Derangement Syndrome knows there was no wrongdoing in a case whose statute of limitations had passed, where there was no violation of federal campaign finance laws and where the state of New York had no jurisdiction to prosecute such a crime—but somehow managed to elevate a supposed false bookkeeping charge into a felony.
Witnesses who would have helped Trump’s defense, including a former FEC commissioner who knew there was no crime, were not allowed to testify.
But salacious and irrelevant testimony by a porn actress was deemed admissible by the judge.
And surely, just by pure coincidence, the number three guy at Biden’s Justice Department, who has been investigating Trump and his business for years just decided to join Bragg’s office to try to put Trump in prison.
Trump’s legal team was not even made aware of what he was even being charged with until after the defense had already rested and thus could no longer respond to the prosecution’s outrageous claims, which were predicated on the words of a convicted perjurer, serial liar and vengeful former Trump attorney.
Michael Cohen was allowed to publicly say whatever he wanted about his former boss, but Trump was silenced under a gag order. And TV cameras were not allowed into the courtroom so the public was unable to see just how biased and corrupt this Kangaroo court was.
The entire point of this humiliating exercise, which was an utter disgrace to our legal system and an embarrassment for our country, was not about fairness or due process. Its only purpose was to damage Trump politically as much as possible before the election.
And in that regard, its intended purpose may have been achieved. It does not so much matter that the conviction will almost certainly be overturned on appeal by a higher court in the months ahead—after the election, of course, when ballots have already been cast.
The only thing that matters is that the 81-year-old feet-shuffling man with the awkward gait who currently occupies the White House—yes, the one who speaks in a language that is indecipherable to most linguists, deems half the country “a threat to democracy,” the one who faces historic disapproval ratings, who has thrown our border wide open, overseen a four-decade-high of inflation, declared war against American energy, and watched as two wars across the world have broken out—yes, that guy can now say that his opponent is a convicted felon—which was always the point.
It remains to be seen what sort of effect this sham verdict will have on Trump’s poll numbers in the next few months, but if the first 24 hours have any precedent, it appears that it will help him.
At the moment, according to the RealClearPolitics Poll Average, Trump is leading Biden in virtually every single swing state, including Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Nevada.
And a new poll from the Daily Mail following the conviction shows Trump with a 6-point-bump.
Within minutes of the jury’s preposterous conviction, the WinRed website temporarily crashed as thousands of current and new Trump supporters rushed to make a donation.
And according to the Trump campaign, in less than a day, they had already raised $34.8 million in donations—nearly doubling their previous single-day high. Thirty percent of the people who donated were also first-time Trump donors.
To paraphrase U2, there’s nothing you can throw at Trump that he hasn’t already seen. This, too, is just a moment that will pass.
What happened on May 30, 2024, was a sad and tragic day for a country that is supposed to embrace freedom, not tyranny.
But here’s the good news: the American people will decide this election, not Bragg, not an acting justice of the New York State Supreme Court, and certainly not 12 jurors who reside in New York City.
And because of what Bragg did, it just might bring Trump back to the White House.
David Keltz is the author of “The Campaign of his Life” and “Media Bias in the Trump Presidency and the Extinction of the Conservative Millennial.” His writing has been published in The American Spectator, RealClearPolitics, American Greatness, the Federalist, the American Thinker, and the New York Daily News, among other publications.
All the trouble the crooks have gone to prosecute President Trump falsely doesn’t lend itself to the belief that these are confident people. Because they aren’t, they will do it again on July 11th when they demonstrate little incentive to spare the country and the former president by not sending him to Riker’s Island. Had the old mafia become a political party, one can easily imagine them cooking up a circus prosecution of a political opponent. But a mafia-like party wouldn’t have lasted long before the natural forces of order and decency intervened. The same will happen to Democrats who have only gotten this far due to their history as an allegedly fair-minded organization. But even the old mafia knew that what goes around comes around. Are Democrats only pretending they have no clue? Or is this another indication of their lack of self-confidence verging on desperation?
But here’s the good news: the American people will decide this election…
Mr. Keltz, I wonder if you’re including in your calculus a few million illegal aliens, another couple million ghost ballots, and election fraud and chicanery that would make a third world banana republic despot green with envy.
The thing that NOBODY understands–yet–is that Trump’s conviction and soon incarceration is about nothing more than pure smash-mouth politics. In other words, the left / Ruling Class means to deny Trump the presidency in any way they can, and they dare any opposed to stop them.
I have my own ideas about what it will take to stop the left, but an abundance of prudence and discretion demands that I maintain my own counsel. But suffice to say, voting harder will not work, nor will peacefully protesting.
Now, if Republican state governors suddenly discover a spine and begin to enforce extreme 10th Amendment federalism, that might be a start. But given these governors are Republicans, I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Red states will not allow them to vote or their votes to be counted. My state will closely look at inner city returns and throw out totals exceeding the number of voters registered there before 2021.