'Surprise move' by prosecutors at end of Trump trial salvaged conviction: expert

A Boston University law professor who admitted that he was skeptical prosecutors from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office could bring their case against Donald Trumpto a successful conclusion stated that a tactical change near the end of the trial sealed the deal with the jury.

In a column for Slate, legal expert Jed Shugerman started by stating he had been a "vocal critic" of the way the charges had initially been presented as part of the 34 felony count indictment.

He was concerned about the prosecution relying on 34 internal documents that the public had no knowledge, he wrote, and how the lawyers would show they'd been used to defraud the public— a central reason for bringing the case to trial.

Shugerman referred to his criticism from last year when he wrote in the New York Times, "If a business record is internal, it is not obvious how a false filing could play a role in defrauding if other entities likely would not rely upon it and be deceived by it.

"Even if one can argue that the statute should apply to internal records, this is not the ideal time to test a seemingly novel (or even a very rare) application.”

At that time he called the Trump indictment a "national embarrassment."

In a postmortem on the trial, he wrote, "But in a surprise move at the end of the trial, the prosecutors restructured the case."

"The statute in question, New York Election Law 17-152, states: 'Any two or more persons who conspire to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means and which conspiracy is acted upon by one or more of the parties thereto, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor,'" he explained before elaborating, "The other crimes that had previously been possible underlying crimes for the falsifying documents charges — the alleged Federal Election Campaign Act violations, secondary false document filings, and tax crimes — were now the possible 'unlawful means' of 'promoting a candidate.' The previous approach had three steps. The end of the trial focused on a fourth step, proving 'unlawful means.'"

Pointing out "This strategy worked with the jury," he continued, "Did Trump intend for these 2017 documents to be a 'means' to win in the 2020 election? The question is whether reasonable people could have come to that conclusion.

"The prosecutors did their job: They persuaded the entire jury; they successfully focused the jury and the public on this case as an unlawful election conspiracy; and they established a factual basis for an appellate court to find sufficient to reach this conclusion, as attenuated as it may seem to some skeptics."

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