Turns out Alvin Bragg has incriminating recordings of Donald Trump
Donald Trump’s criminal trials are going to end up feeling like cathartic reality show entertainment to everyone who had to endure his criminally illegitimate presidency. But we’re now getting a good reminder that criminal trials aren’t meant to be entertainment, and are instead all about adhering to strict procedures to make sure a clean verdict happens.
To that end, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and his office are now revealing that they have an incriminating recording of Donald Trump and an unnamed witness. This isn’t something that Bragg is putting out there to win over the court of public opinion. Nor is Bragg strategically putting this out there to try to rattle Trump. We’re past all that now, you see.
Instead, Bragg and his office have informed Trump that they have this recording, because that’s how discovery works. Leading up to a criminal trial, you have to reveal this kind of thing to the other side within a certain timeframe, in a certain way. There’s even an official form involved.
It’s a good reminder of two things. First, there’s still a lot of hidden detail about the Manhattan criminal case against Donald Trump that we don’t know about yet. We don’t know if this is the Michael Cohen recording of Trump that has already been played on television a thousand times, or if it’s some entirely different recording involving some other witness. These details will be revealed to us in due time – but on the schedule the court trial system requires, any not based on any entertainment value.
Second, criminal trials really are fundamentally built on strict adherence to procedures, and by extension, a general lack of suspense. This isn’t Perry Mason. Surprise witnesses don’t barge into the courtroom at the last moment and upend the case for one side or the other. Criminal trials are, in a word, clinical. The court system considers doing right by the general public to be its highest priority – but only by delivering the correct verdict in the end, not by entertaining the public along the way. The purpose of Trump’s criminal trials will be to put him in prison, which is the ultimate catharsis. Any entertainment value we’re able to glean from them along the way will simply be a bonus.
