'Stakes are unbelievably high': Trump’s first criminal trial considered 'most problematic'

After US District Judge Tanya Chutkan indefinitely postponed former President Donald Trump's election interference trial — originally scheduled for March 4 — Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg appears to be first in line to face Trump for the first-ever criminal trial of a former US president. A recent Washington Post report characterized Bragg's case as the "weakest" of Trump's four indictments.

According to the Post, the March 25 trial in Manhattan could be the hardest case for prosecutors to obtain a conviction. Bragg charged the former president with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in arranging $130,000 in "hush money" payments to porn actress Stephanie Clifford (aka Stormy Daniels). While that charge is typically a misdemeanor, Bragg elevated the charges to felonies with "a novel use of the law in a high-profile, politically sensitive matter." The New York Times reported last year that Bragg was able to escalate misdemeanors to felonies only by alleging that those misdemeanors were used to cover up or conceal a separate crime.

Joshua Naftalis, who is a former federal prosecutor in New York, told the Post that the alleged hush money cover-up "is probably the least serious of the crimes [Trump's] been charged with, but... the stakes are unbelievably high for everyone." And former federal prosecutor Robert Mintz said Bragg's case being the first attempt to convict Trump of a crime is "somewhat of a worst-case scenario for prosecutors."

READ MORE: Judge overseeing Trump Manhattan hush money case bucks his attempts to delay trial

"By leading off the string of indictments with the case that is the most problematic from a legal, rather than evidentiary standpoint, this runs the risk of potentially handing the Trump defense team an early win on legal sufficiency grounds that plays into the defense claims that all of these prosecutions are politically motivated and may spill over to damage the credibility of the other criminal cases in the minds of the public," Mintz said.

At the heart of Bragg's indictment is reimbursement payments the former president made to "fixer" and lawyer Michael Cohen, who paid Clifford $130,000 ahead of the 2016 election in exchange for her silence about an extramarital affair she had with Trump. Those payments to Cohen were labeled under the guise of legal fees, even though Bragg alleges they were, in fact, campaign expenditures aimed at bolstering his endeavor for the White House. New York election law stipulates that it's a crime to illegally promote a candidate. Bragg also notes that $130,000 far exceeds the federal limit on individual campaign contributions.

Defense attorney Ronald Kuby didn't share the pessimism of others the Post interviewed. He told the publication that Bragg's case is strong where the other three aren't.

"Unlike the DC [election interference] case, this does not involve any question of presidential immunity. Unlike the Florida documents case, this does not involve the lengthy proceedings that are needed in cases where classified information is at issue, and unlike the Georgia case, it is not a sprawling indictment of 18 people — there’s one defendant," Kuby said. "And the evidence that has been made publicly available is compelling."

READ MORE: How Trump's own DOJ laid out his guilt in the Stormy Daniels payoff

Read the Post's full report by clicking here (subscription required).