A few hours before the start of his first criminal trial, donald trump asked a question through your social media platform. “Why didn’t they file this totally discredited lawsuit 7 years ago???” the former president asked. “Election interference!”
For now, let’s not dwell on the Republican’s obvious errors of fact and judgment, including the fact that the criminal case was only “totally discredited” in his active imagination. Let’s also ignore the fact that the defendant has taken a series of steps to try to further delay these proceedings, leaving Trump in a position where he believes the case is moving too slowly and too quickly.
Instead, let’s consider your question on the merits.
After all, it’s easy to imagine some impartial observers wondering the same thing. The alleged misconduct in this case is unrelated to the 2024 election cycle and the 2020 election cycle, and arises from actions Trump allegedly took in 2016 and 2017.
So why is the case against the presumptive Republican Party nominee only getting to court now? It turns out we know the answer — even though Trump doesn’t like to talk about it.
For briefly recap, as Election Day 2016 approached, Trump and his political operation were concerned about the public learning about his alleged sexual encounter with a porn star named Stormy Daniels. With these fears in mind, the then candidate and his team created a shell company that Trump’s mediator michael cohenused to bribe Daniels, effectively buying his silence.
Shortly thereafter, Trump, according to prosecutors, falsified business records while making incremental payments to Cohen, reimbursing the lawyer for the scheme.
These are the same payments that ultimately sent Cohen to prison, which leads to the obvious question of why he, and not his former client – identified as “Individual 1” in court documents – faced serious consequences. After all, Cohen pleaded guilty to crimes he committed in coordination with Trump and presented evidence of checks signed by Trump.
As Rachel explained on last night’s show, the federal prosecutor overseeing the Southern District of New York at the time was Geoffrey Berman – a longtime Republican who worked on the Trump campaign and Trump’s transition tea, and who was chosen by Trump for the position. It was Berman who later wrote a book about his experiences, shedding light on what happened in the Cohen case.
In fact, according to Berman, after his office secured Cohen’s guilty plea, Justice Department officials in Washington, D.C., began intervening in matters in New York City, effectively trying to make the Trump mess go away. /Cohen.
Berman went so far as to claim that once Bill Barr became Trump’s attorney general, Barr “not only attempted to shut down ongoing investigations but – incredibly – suggested that Cohen’s conviction on campaign finance charges should be reversed.”
Berman’s office was instructed to “cease all investigative work” into the allegations until Barr and his team were convinced there was a legal basis for the campaign finance charges to which Cohen had already pleaded guilty. The prosecutor wondered at the time whether the then-attorney general was trying to protect Trump from potential legal liability after he left office.
All of this means that Barr and his team directly intervened in an ongoing federal criminal investigation that implicated the then-president, who appointed Barr. As part of this intervention, Berman’s office was also instructed to remove damaging references to Trump in court filings.
If that wasn’t enough, Trump’s Justice Department also instructed Berman to investigate Democrats who committed no crimes. When the prosecutor resisted, Barr told the audience that Berman had resigned. He did not have. Soon after, Trump fired him.
But although the then-attorney general and his team intervened in a case that implicated his boss, it had the effect of delaying the investigation by local prosecutors because they deferred to their federal counterparts.
Eventually, Trump’s Justice Department quietly let it be known that it was no longer looking into the allegations in the Cohen case, and two weeks later New York prosecutors began issuing subpoenas.
Why is the former president’s case only going to trial now? In part because the Trump administration politicized the legal process and perverted a federal investigation without just cause.
The former president understood the entire scandal backwards. He believes the real controversy is that the case was not prosecuted sooner, when in reality, he would have been prosecuted sooner if his team’s supporters had not corrupted the process on his behalf.
This article was originally published in MSNBC.com
