Alvin Bragg STRIKES AGAIN With HUGE New Filing

hi everyone Harry here to talk about da Alvin Bragg's response to Donald Trump's Motion in the trial court to set aside his conviction on 34 counts based on the Supreme Court immunity decision okay so it's a methodical comprehensive well done motion I will March through at least some of the main uh arguments uh but just for those who might just want the sort of Topline context let me start by saying this is in the trial court so uh when you're appealing you you bring it first typically unless you get permission not to in the trial court and the trial court under New York law and generally is empowered to set aside a verdict for any reason that an appell Court could set one aside some others as well but basically this is the exact kinds of arguments the exact arguments that we will see in the appet division the New York second level appeals uh court and the same sites the same everything so that but we're in the trial court and um I expect we'll see but this is Justice uh Juan mchan who presided over the trial and this is actually one ruling that I think could well come before the election and simply the trial court saying no and protecting the convictions that the jury in his courtroom found but it's a little bit of news and it will be a little bit of news so that that's the was one sort of procedural point if assuming Trump loses then we take this basically this exact package we know now what it's going to look like up to the Appellate Division second this is under the immunity decision and just to we sketched this out at the time when Trump filed his motion but he's saying two or three things um he's saying first this is immune conduct recall that's the basic distinction between official acts and unofficial acts and he's saying that that he was prosecuted for official acts pretty pretty a hard argument to try to make but then he's saying and this is really where the action will be that he was prejudiced under the Supreme Court immunity decision because mer Chan introduced or permitted the da to introduce certain evidence and as part of the Supreme Court's wildly overreaching immunity decision they've said even that you can't even if you're proving unofficial acts you can't introduce official conduct so remember that we have hop piix in 2018 when he's president talking about a Wall Street Journal article that that has uh uncovered the fact of the payoff to Stormy Daniels of the hush money and the like so what we have in very broad Strokes from uh brag is first as to much of the evidence he's complaining about he waved it and didn't bring it up second it fails anyway for example it's not official conduct it's unofficial conduct and then third and a big fall back any error in introducing evidence was harmless that is to say and this is a universal Doctrine in Criminal Courts if you look at all the evidence and the evidence was overwhelming and and a reasonable juror would have found you got to do the sort of counterfactual in your head but a reasonable juror would have found guilt even without the evidence that's now complained about the verdict stands you don't want to you know start all over from scratch at step one uh because of an inadvertent error this would be um you know nobody could have uh seen the exact terms especially this very broad aspect of evidence in the Supreme Court's um immunity ruling so this would have been something that was sort of stumbled into by the trial court importantly though for the waiver argument I was struck and hadn't seen that in terms of bringing it up you have to you're charged with raising the claim even though the you it's now based on an intervening Supreme Court decision you can still Wave by not having brought it up before the decision came down so uh there's a lot of the evidence here that Trump is complaining about that he clearly didn't make any objection about there actually a few that that they did and most importantly the hopix uh testimony they did raise an immunity objection it's a little murky whether they perfected it or followed through but basically New York law says you can you waved if you don't raise it okay so very broad strokes and and and uh now before diving in so just to repeat this is in the trial court so you could see it before actually come out before the election um it's based on immunity but rid large which is how the Supreme Court rid it uh with this you know extra doctrine of you can't even use evidence because take a step back the context of this case is how how more unofficial can you get than a candidate paying uh hush money to keep information from the American people to be before the election uh and then more or less uh three-part argument as to there as to different evidence um you know Trump is saying these 15 pieces of evidence should have been admitted so the DA's response to all of them are it's not identical it depends on the facts of trial but roughly we want to be thinking about waiver he didn't bring it up and so he can't now wrong on the on the merits this is not uh this doesn't fit in the Supreme Court is neither official conduct nor even testimony about official conduct and um harmless era that's going to be a really um big part of it I think it's likely you're going to see a harmless error ruling by Justice meran and that's typically uh because the trial court sits there has seen all the evidence saw it saw it come in day by day saw the jury that's the sort of ruling that typically stands up on um a of course nothing about this case is typical and you can certainly imagine an appet division judge who is um very skeptical for whatever reason not just um endorsing the harmless eror analysis okay that's broad Strokes um and um now let me just go through uh this but in more specifics that will come up so what's he challenging what's he saying he is saying trying you know lamely to say this was official conduct in some way because it was consummated in the White House else remember the scheme he he pays some checks there but you just cuz you're in the Oval Office doesn't mean everything you do is official uh and the signing of those personal checks to finish a payoff to storyy Daniels really is uh won't cut it as official action that's part of the argument but the main the the real hope that Trump has would be by the way for a new trial not a reversal or anything but a new trial and it's based on pieces of evidence essentially hope pix's testimony in 2018 uh office of government ethics form uh where he fills out financial obligations and the like and then a bunch of tweets some of which postate the presidency and that's the the the sort of First Battle uh big battle on the substance will be are those official or unofficial so let's uh talk about Hicks because that really is the the um big part she is comes in the Oval Office oh Wall Street Journal has the story Etc they talk about it some Trump actually says it's a good thing that uh that this coming out now not before the election that's that's really uh uh pretty um inculpatory evidence and then he says that he had uh that Michael Cohen had paid it all back himself out of the goodness of his heart and hope piix knows he the president of the United States is lying to her and she as much as says that on the stand and that's I think what what makes her break into tears okay so it's not this is the Trump uh Team best chance to say we um introduced some evidence uh the The Da did and it was of official action but the but the da you know slices it pretty uh finely first what the da basically says is this isn't about it's true hopix is the communications director but this isn't about Communications this is you they don't form any kind of outward facing the way the DEA uh phrases it conduct uh to respond to it's it's really just a sort of uh Hicks to to Trump conversation that isn't official within the rubric of you're talking to your Communications officer and the court made clear that you can have conversations with official people and they're not automatically official the example that uh they give here is not the greatest though because they give the Mike Pence case and what the court said there is you know sometimes Mike Pence the vice president is in his guise as president of the Senate and that's not the same thing so the court did come within an eyelash of saying and maybe a the appell division will say the court uh Supreme Court said that if you're in the Oval Office and you're talking to an official person we're not going to um slice it so finely as to say well it wasn't really outward facing but that's the brag argument as to uh Hicks and then there's the financial report Supreme Court said you can have certain official records and that's not a problem and I think that that's going to come in without any question and then all the tweets Trump never objected to them at trial I think the real action here is going to be with hop piix all right what about did he object to that at trial yeah but uh let's move to waiver for a second two points to knowe the first is uh a little bit of field but but it matters here and brag relies on it remember he Trump tried to remove the whole criminal case to Federal Court when you do that it's a fairly similar inquiry to what the Supreme Court has now prescribed for immunity basically were you taking official action and he tried to remove it he lost and then he did not pursue the appeal so there's an argument that he waved uh things about official conduct conduct anyway then as to hopix it's clear there's a couple times where he does object uh and it's about official conduct but he uh says it specifically about uh statements that he Trump made and again this would be slicing the salami pretty thin but you could say that he doesn't even object to anything other than that and the testimony actually was admitted by the court the da profets different reasons and it was actually admitted for its um probative value having to do with Michael Cohen and Michael Cohen's uh state of mind and um you know the the idea from Trump about who paid back and uh who didn't it's it's you know what was Cohen thinking when that money was transferred that's the reason in theory um but still we have the hope picks stuff so some argument about waiver but not so solid then on the merits some argument uh to say you know look this still is Trump in the O office talking about paying off a porn star and it doesn't matter that he's now uh has the the Seal of the presidency behind him this is not official conduct so that's the second thing and then third the big one harmless air and that is is you know a very sort of loose subjective you look at all the evidence now one problem with the H pix evidence is they really emphasized it and closing argument the DA got up told the jury this was devastating but even if it was devastating man there was a lot of you know here's where I feel I can offer something uh to you guys a little more you know in terms of what mer Chan will be thinking because I was there at the trial and you know you you take away hope piics the main use of her testimony was to say team Trump was freaking out when um the stormmy Daniels testimony hit in the immediate wake of Access Hollywood and I'm sorry that was that was proved overwhelmingly with David pcker with Michael Cohen it certainly is available to to Justice Merchant I think it'd be the right ruling to say any era here had to be harmless and that that being the ultimate so you could go on waiver but especially with hopix it's a little murky you could say this just isn't official conduct but you're at least maybe merchan would think leading with your chin because you know this this will very possibly go up to the Supreme Court through the appell at division the court of appeals the highest court in New York and then the Supreme Court could take it and say you could really be worried that that's going to that would come back to bite so I think it's going to be harmless air that'll be the focus here that's the the basic core that we focusing on hope piic if others kind of emerge I I'll come back to talk about it but the short story here is hopix he's that's his best shot but I think at the end of the day the there's a pretty strong uh kind of um safety net for brag which is harm error analysis talk to you later thanks for tuning in if you enjoyed this video and other talking feds content please take a second to like And subscribe talk to you later