Acquit Trump in the Hush-Money Case

Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg should never have indicted the so-called hush-money case against former president Donald Trump. And now Judge Juan Merchan should throw the case out, or the jury should acquit Trump, for the simple reason that Bragg has failed to prove the charges.

In 2022, the DA rejected the push for an indictment by some of his subordinates. He revived the prosecution in 2023 only after another ambitious Democrat, Attorney General Letitia James, was lauded by New York progressives for bringing a sprawling, victimless civil-fraud case Bragg had declined to charge criminally — and when it was clear that Trump would run for president in 2024.

Bragg’s indictment failed to perform its basic constitutional function of putting the defendant on notice of the charges. The false-business-records charge against Trump requires proof that he aimed to conceal another crime. The prosecution waited until its closing argument — after the defense had rested its case and could not respond — to disclose definitively and emphatically that the other crime was violating federal campaign-finance law.