Donald Trump’s legal team has reportedly told the former President that he should prepare to lose if he is criminally charged in New York City. According to sources familiar with the matter, Trump’s lawyers have informed him that it would be difficult for him to get an impartial jury in the Democratic stronghold of Manhattan, and his best chance would be to win on appeal. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has empanelled a grand jury to investigate whether Trump broke New York state business records laws by reimbursing his former personal attorney and fixer Michael Cohen for a hush money payment to cover up an alleged affair with porn star Stormy Daniels.
However, if the case goes to trial, Trump’s allies have already telegraphed their plans to assail the prosecution as politically motivated and even to allege that the city of New York itself is out to put the screws to Trump. The former President is also prone to hurling wild allegations at Bragg, such as bizarrely calling him “racist” for investigating him. Prosecutors with experience in New York do not find the argument persuasive, saying that many high-profile cases, including political cases, terrorism cases, and massive fraud cases, have occurred in the city.
New York City has already successfully prosecuted Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s former chief financial officer, and two Trump companies, the Trump Payroll Corporation and Trump Corporation, on tax charges last year. Trump’s legal team has already moved to throw out the report from a separate grand jury investigation into potential election interference by Trump in Georgia, alleging that the jury foreperson failed to protect the most basic procedural and substantive constitutional rights.
Across the wide network of former Trump officials, there’s a dim view of his chances, as many believe a jury drawn from heavily Democratic Manhattan would easily vote to convict the former President. Lawyer and former Trump presidential transition team member Mark Smith said during a NewsNation appearance on Tuesday that “it might be very difficult for Donald Trump to get a fair hearing in the county of Manhattan given it’s so overwhelmingly blue and anti-Trump,” but he added that it wasn’t impossible. The intense media scrutiny on the Trump case and his global notoriety also make it unlikely that other venues would make jury selection any easier.
