Print Commentary By Newt Gingrich - - Wednesday, March 22, 2023 OPINION:
New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg ‘s attempt to indict and convict former President
Donald Trump is one more example of Trump haters making his nomination virtually inevitable and his
election increasingly likely. Mark Halperin, in his extraordinary daily newsletter “The Wide World of News,” has been saying that Mr. Trump can’t return because he never left. The latest legal attacks on Mr. Trump show how right Mr. Halperin is. In 2015, candidate Trump was hammered by gossip, smears, lies about
Russian collusion, and a host of assaults. We now know they were based on baloney — and often assisted by elements of the
FBI violating every rule against law enforcement interference in
elections. They all failed. Mr. Trump won. Mr. Trump was attacked for four solid years. A special counsel used the full power of the federal government to try to destroy him, and it failed. He is the only president to have been impeached twice by the House (in this case, a legislative tyranny run by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi) and exonerated twice by the
Senate. He survived. The New York Times and
Washington Post both won Pulitzer Prizes for publishing what we now know were lies about Mr. Trump . None of the prizes have been taken back, of course. To hate Mr. Trump is to be excused for virtually any exaggeration or dishonesty. Hunter Biden has a laptop with astonishing material on it. The FBI does nothing. We now know that two Chinese communists made a $3 million payment to the Biden family. Nothing has been done. The universities of
Pennsylvania and Delaware have been taking tens of millions of dollars from the Chinese communists while taking care of the Bidens and their associates. Nothing is done. Americans have watched the FBI and the Department of Justice pounce on every opportunity to embarrass and harass Mr. Trump while doing nothing about the enormous national security implications of the Biden family absorbing money from Russia,
Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Romania and China. Now, the George Soros-supported Manhattan district attorney is trying to convict Mr. Trump of an absurdly exaggerated charge. As a March 21
Fox News report indicates, “Soros donated $1 million in May 2021 to the Color of Change PAC, which in the following weeks spent cash backing Bragg ‘s candidacy. The timing of the money makes it likely it aided the efforts.” But don’t just take my word for it. Here are three wise comments on the ridiculous charges being pursued against Mr. Trump . Ben Domenech wrote in The Transom: “The choice of the all-but-forgotten Alvin Bragg to bring the charges against Trump was nothing less than a stroke of creative genius. Think of it: Bragg, like Trump , is a born-and-bred New Yorker and an ambitious man, but the similarities end there. Bragg grew up in Harlem while Trump went into his father’s business of real estate; Bragg is obsessed with letting criminals off easy while Trump stands for law and order full stop. By putting these two on a collision course, the show has given Trump his greatest foil since the stern, phlegmatic, Boston-accented
John Kelly in season three. The Trump lines practically write themselves: ‘I guess I’m the one guy Alvin Bragg wants to send to prison! I dunno! I dunno!’” Jonathan Turley wrote in the New York Post: “It is an effort to reanimate a long dead legal claim against Trump , but could reanimate his presidential campaign. ‘It’s moving. It’s alive. It’s alive … it’s moving … IT’S ALIVE!’ “The scene from the 1931 movie ‘Frankenstein’ came to mind this week as Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg prepared an indictment of former President Donald Trump .” Writing separately in The Hill, Mr. Turley pointed out the case may be popular with
Democrats and other Trump haters, but it “is legally pathetic.” Mr. Bragg is trying to shoehorn state laws into a federal case (which the
Justice Department had previously considered and rejected). Andy McCarthy pointed out that Mr. Bragg is otherwise notoriously soft on criminals. He said the case is “more evidence that Bragg’s crusade against Trump is nothing more than brass-knuckles politicization of law-enforcement power.” Mr. Bragg could hardly be doing a better
Job of strengthening Mr. Trump while making himself look incompetent and absurd. Whatever happens in the next few days, Mr. Trump is much closer to being the
Republican nominee than he was a week ago (and he was already the front-runner a week ago). Meanwhile, banks collapse, inflation rages,
Russia and
China come closer together, and President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris look more and more incompetent. What are Trump haters doing about any of that? • For more commentary from Newt Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com. Copyright © 2023 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission . Please read our comment policy before commenting. Click to Read More and View Comments Click to Hide Sponsored Stories