After months of buildup, Donald Trump will become the first former president to ever stand criminal trial. Fordham Law Professor Cheryl Bader, a former federal prosecutor, is quoted in the The Guardian analyzing this high profile case.
Like all of the trials against Trump, there will be a case in the courtroom and in the court of public opinion. And first-term district attorney Alvin Bragg will need to clear both hurdles by not only presenting a cut-and-dried case about falsifying business records, but reminding the American public who the true victims are: them.
“The prosecutor is going to want to sort of detail a precise case of ‘these are the documents, it was falsified, he knew and he had the intent’ and is going to try, in some ways, to simplify and streamline this case for the jury,” said Cheryl Bader, a professor at Fordham law school who specializes in criminal justice. “On the other hand, they also want to show why this matters as a matter of election democracy and choosing the highest officer in the land.”
Read “Trump’s first trial is starting. Here’s how it’ll work” in The Guardian.