Former President Donald Trump was convicted Thursday on 34 charges in a case that experts on both sides of the aisle have called “ill-conceived” and “unjustified.” However, many believe Trump’s real offense was his 2016 election victory, with the Manhattan trial seen as the culmination of eight years of election denialism propagated by left-wing supporters.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg alleged that Trump reimbursed his then-lawyer Michael Cohen for payments Cohen made to Stormy Daniels to prevent negative publicity about an alleged affair. According to Bragg, these payments should have been classified as campaign expenses rather than legal expenses. There is nothing illegal about nondisclosure agreements or purchasing negative press. However, Bragg claims Trump “orchestrated a scheme with others to influence the 2016 presidential election by identifying and purchasing negative information about him to suppress its publication and benefit his electoral prospects.”
To amplify the severity of the payments and transform an alleged bookkeeping offense into 34 felonies, prosecutors suggested the payment to Daniels was part of a conspiracy to steal the 2016 election. Matthew Colangelo from the Department of Justice stated that “this was a planned, long-running conspiracy to influence the 2016 election, to help Donald Trump get elected through illegal expenditures to silence people who had something bad to say about his behavior.”
“It was election fraud, pure and simple,” Colangelo continued, according to PBS News. “The defendant, Donald Trump, orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election. Then he covered up that criminal conspiracy by lying in his New York business records repeatedly.”
This All Stems From the Phony Russia-Collusion Hoax
Democrats accusing Trump of a conspiracy to steal the 2016 election might sound familiar.
Adding to the controversy, the initial “evidence” used by Bragg’s team originated from an FBI raid conducted after Special Counsel Robert Mueller referred the matter to the Southern District of New York, as pointed out by independent journalist Matt Taibbi in his article. “Mueller’s investigation, remember, grew out of the FBI’s dubious Crossfire Hurricane investigation,” Taibbi added.
In 2016, Clinton campaign lawyers engaged oppo research firm Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Trump. Fusion GPS then hired British spy Christopher Steele, who crafted the “Steele dossier” containing uncorroborated claims that Trump was a Russian asset. Igor Danchenko, the primary source for the dossier, was actually tied to Russian intelligence and was later indicted for lying to the FBI.
The FBI used this dossier as a pretext to spy on the Trump campaign in an operation dubbed Crossfire Hurricane.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who found no evidence that the Trump campaign conspired with Russian operatives, referred a matter concerning Cohen to the Southern District of New York. In April 2018, the FBI raided Cohen’s home “in search of documents related to the hush-money payment” as well as other documents, according to Bloomberg.
The connection between the Russia collusion hoax and the Manhattan trial is deeper than just the origins of the evidence. Democrats have been reeling since Americans chose Trump over Clinton, who has called Trump’s presidency “illegitimate” since her defeat. President Joe Biden also echoed this sentiment, agreeing with a supporter in 2019 who referred to Trump as an “illegitimate president.”
Democrats’ inability to accept the 2016 election results led to the invention of the latest claim — that Trump “stole” the election by paying for a non-disclosure agreement.
