[Life, Liberty and Levin] Levin: This Is Why The Bragg Judge Will Not Allow Professor Bradley Smith Testify -- He Will Completely Torpedo Anything Left Of This Stalinist Show Trial.

THIS IS WHY THE BRAGG JUDGE WILL NOT ALLOW PROFESSOR BRADLEY SMITH
TESTIFY -- HE WILL COMPLETELY TORPEDO ANYTHING LEFT OF THIS STALINIST
SHOW TRIAL.

Source: Life, Liberty and Levin, Fox on 03-31-24

MARK LEVIN: We have, in my view, the foremost expert on federal
campaign law, the former chairman of the Federal Election Commission,
Bradley Smith, Capital University law professor and founder of the
Institute for Free Speech. And, Brad, nobody better than to have you
here. I had you here about a year ago. And so we need to underscore a
point. The Alvin Bragg case rests on an effort to federalize state law
to turn a misdemeanor, if there is one into a felony, based on a
bizarre interpretation of a can a of a violation of our federal finance
laws, federal campaign laws, one that was already tried, but
interestingly enough, by Jack Smith with John Edwards and fell flat. Do
you want to explain to the American people the core of what Alvin
Bragg's attempt is with respect to federal election law?

BRADLEY SMITH: Sure. So to upgrade of what would be a very routine
misdemeanor in New York to a felony, the D.A. has to show that this
misreporting, as he alleges, was done in order to conceal a crime. The
crime, he says it was being concealed was a violation of the Federal
Election Campaign Act. And what he says that was, was that, by paying
money to Stormy Daniels for her silence, that that amounted to a
campaign expenditure and therefore it was not properly reported under
federal law. And that jacks the whole state claim up to a felony. Now,
the problem with that is that federal law does not say that anything
that you think might help you win an election is a campaign expense.
Rather, it's an objective test in which things like polling, paying for
staff, paying for headquarters, you know, paying for advertisements and
so on. Those are campaign expenses. And the law, in fact, specifically
prohibits someone from using campaign expenses or making campaign
expenses for personal use. That is, to pay, you know, things that might
help you, like good looking clothes or plastic surgery or a good
looking haircut or, you know, a nice, relaxing vacation. So you're
fresh on the trail. Country club memberships. You can entertain, or
settling nuisance business suits so that they're not an issue in the
campaign. Those are all viewed as personal expenses, and they're not
something you can pay with campaign expenses. So I think that's the
problem that the you have, he's trying to allege that these campaign
expenses I mean, I'm sorry, these these payments to Stormy Daniels were
campaign expenses. And I think quite clearly they exist from an
obligation independent of, Mr. Trump's campaign for president. You
mentioned the Edwards case. We'll go back to Edwards. This was a
similar case with John Edwards. People remember him, ran for president,
back in the early 2000. Edwards had supporters who, spent money to
support and keep quiet a mistress whom he had gotten pregnant. And that
went to trial. The jury ended up either hung or acquitting Edwards on a
number of counts. That that was, you know, finding that that was not a
not an offense under federal campaign finance law.

MARK LEVIN:  But the theory is the same theory, which is that if
anything is done, that may positively impact your campaign as opposed
to negatively impacting your campaign. And let's say it's it's then
it's an illegal unreported corporate contribution or in the case
Edwards, just an illegal contribution. And this is why people are
saying that this is a preposterous case. It's sort of a it's a maze
that you have to go through and follow. It's why the U.S. Attorney's
Office wanted nothing to do that. It's why the prior district attorney
wanted nothing to do with it. Bragg dusts it off and he says, no, even
though I'm a local D.A., I'm going to pass judgment on federal campaign
laws, which he has no jurisdiction to do. I'm going to assert that this
nondisclosure agreement that was, that was, provided, put it in the
wrong category as a legal expense, or maybe it should have been a
business expense. And I'm going to assert all of that was done in
violation of federal campaign law in order to create a positive
campaign image. Is that about right?

BRADLEY SMITH:  Right. Yeah. I mean, that's his theory. And by the way,
Mark, also, the Federal Election Commission chose not to act on this.
And they, under the statute, are supposed to be the primary interpreter
of the law. And here's the thing about this is that had Trump use
campaign expenses to pay off Stormy Daniels and file this as a report,
you can pretty much, bet your house that people on the left would be
coming after him for misappropriating campaign funds to pay personal
expenses. And in fact, even now, people on the left in the last week or
so have released a spate of columns and commentary arguing that Trump
cannot use campaign funds to pay this judgment against him. In another,
I think, kind of preposterous suit. And that's this alleged civil fraud
suit with, $450 million judgment or whatever it was. So you have a
sense that they were going to get coming or going. If he paid for it
with campaign money, they would say it was a personal use, misuse of
campaign funds, felony. If he doesn't pay for it with campaign money,
they want to say, hey, you didn't properly pay for it with campaign
money and report it. And you can't have it both ways. And I think the
DA's theory ultimately is going to crash. He may even win at trial
there in New York and everything. But eventually I don't see it
standing.

MARK LEVIN:  But in the case of John Edwards, it was more direct, even
though it wasn't a violation of law. That is, donors did raise the
money and provided to protect Edwards from the negative publicity. In
this case, we have a state law, a reporting issue that I would argue
isn't even a misdemeanor. And then you have the Da going into federal
law where he has no jurisdiction. You just said the FEC, the FEC that
oversees it says no, no violation. The U.S. attorney doesn't want
anything to do with the prior Da. And he's twisting the law. He's
twisting it to try and apply to Donald Trump. So it's even, in my view,
worse than the John Edwards case. No.

BRADLEY SMITH: Well, I think it is. And it's worse. And yet another
way, which is in the Edwards case, it's entirely clear that they were
paying� his supporters were paying this woman in order to protect his
political viability. Whereas in the in the case of Mr. Trump, while
that was probably a consideration or at least may have been a
consideration. He also had a number of other considerations of
protecting his, his wife, his children, commercial interest and so on.
So, yeah, I just don't think that there's any real basis for for
alleging that this is a campaign expenditure. I always put it to
people, you know, when you contribute money to a campaign, is this what
you expect it to be spent on? And the answer is no. It's a personal
expense.

MARK LEVIN:  When we come back. What is this? Hush. Money. They keep
calling this hush money. Our non-disclosure agreement signed as a
matter routine throughout this country, every day by corporations,
including media corporations, including government officials like
members of Congress, including the judiciary. They keep calling it hush
money. Is it not a nondisclosure agreement? A routine contract when
people are separated or make a deal? I want to pursue that with you
when we return. We'll be right back.

MARK LEVIN: Welcome back America. Hey, we're Bradley Smith, Capitol
University law professor, former chairman of the Federal Election
Commission. He founded the Institute for Free Speech, Bradley Smith.
Nondisclosure agreements H.R. departments enter into those all the
time, every day. Media corporations who are calling this hush money. I
noticed NBC has entered into nondisclosure agreements. Most
nondisclosure agreements are secret, so we don't even know. They
entered into my CNET's entered into them. All kinds of people enter
into them. So is it the effort here by the media and others, the Biden
campaign to try and turn this into some kind of a treacherous, evil
event? He's trying to cover it up with hush money, and then he uses
corporate money, and then he he uses it in violation of federal
campaign laws. Isn't this all bogus?

BRADLEY SMITH:  Yeah. There's a there's a lot of smoke. And as you
point out, Mark, I mean, hush money is just a pejorative term. You can
call lots of settlements hush money, or you can call them settlements
and nondisclosure agreements, and usually they're called the latter.
And in this particular case, for example, I draw the comparison. You
know, they're businessmen. Like, 5/20/24, 5:37 PM Bradley Smith - 3/31/
markrlevin's mailbox 3/4 Trump will always have a lot of lawsuits going
against his various businesses. And he may and in particular point, you
know, tell his local council, say, look, I want you to settle that
lawsuit. The guy says, no, it's a good case. He says, now just sell it
because I don't want it distracting from my political campaign. He's
doing it to help his political campaign, but that doesn't make it a
campaign. He couldn't expense he couldn't use his campaign funds to pay
off that that settlement. And with the nondisclosure agreement. And so
that's the again, the problem that the Da has here, as you said, you
know, it's a lot of rhetoric, a lot of smoke. But if you really start
boring into it, you start asking people, okay, where is the legal
violation? And it becomes it becomes pretty flimsy.

MARK LEVIN: This case is also weird in another way. The U.S. Attorney's
Office drops 100,000 pages of documents three weeks before the judge
sets the trial. The prosecution says, oh, that's not a problem. We
weren't responsible for it. Biden's U.S. Attorney's Office was
responsible for it. Obviously, defense counsel needs time to cull
through all that and perhaps do more discovery, call witnesses, conduct
other, you know, pursue other information that may come out of that.
And yet the judge sets the date for three weeks. So I look at the Sixth
Amendment about competent counsel and all these sorts of things. What
is the hurry? What is the rush here? Is it what we all think it is?

BRADLEY SMITH: Well, you know, I think people will put their own own
thoughts on on why the rush is there, but I think it's fairly apparent
that Bragg wants to get a scalp in the midst of the campaign and, you
know, hang that up as a trophy. The you're right, the case was supposed
to begin on trial on March 25th. It's been moved to April 15th. That's
that's not a lot of time to review 100,000 pages of documents. Trump's
attorneys asked for more, but the judge decided that that that was
enough. So I guess they're planning to go ahead. In the middle of this
month.

MARK LEVIN:  I see these courts all over the country. They're in a big
hurry. I've never seen anything like this. You know, in the old days, I
used to litigate. You did? I was more appellate than district court
action. But still, there are processes in places, and cases could take
years, particularly when you're talking about 100,000 pages of
documents. Somebody's actual liberty. Courts were very deferential.
They were concerned not just about appearance, but actual due process,
actual right to have competent counsel actually do these things. The
courts would bend over backwards for defendants. I just feel the courts
are bending over backwards for the prosecution. And I don't think it's
any surprise that these cases are coming in one Democrat city after
another, after another. I'm not asking you to comment on that. I'm just
telling the public that this is not normal. This is not regular
procedure. What's taking place? There is no reason for a judge to say
no. You only have three weeks when the defense counsel is asking for 60
or 90 days, when everybody's looking at the calendar in the election,
when in fact, that's not what they should be looking at. They should be
looking at the law books and the Constitution. This case is
particularly pernicious because, in my view, we've been here and we've
done that. And even the Department of Justice said after the John
Edwards case, after Jack Smith lost that case, it was not going to
bring charges again. Where the where, the where the jury was hung. They
said, drop it, it's not cutting it. And yet here it's still being
pursued. Final comment.

BRADLEY SMITH:  Yeah. Mark, you know, the D.A. Bragg in this case
waited I think it was almost a year before even bringing the charges.
And I think that's because the charges were flimsy. And as you point
out, they've been you know, the prior D.A. had said, no, we're not
going to bring this to DOJ, said no. The Federal Election Commission
said no. And when he got increased political pressure, he brought the
case. But that brings up the question. You know, you let it sit there
for a long time, and now there's such a hurry that you can't even give
the defense attorneys another three weeks to pore through, you know,
100,000 page document drop. I do think it raises some, some problematic
issues. But again, apparently Judge Merchan disagrees, and he's the man
in charge at this point

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Let's go Brandon!