ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith criticized Democratic Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on Monday for wasting “taxpayer dollars” in order to uphold his conviction of President-elect Donald Trump.
Bragg, in his Dec. 9 opposition to Trump’s motion to dismiss the case, suggested that Judge Juan Merchan could adopt an abatement — a legal mechanism typically used “when a defendant dies between conviction and sentencing,” according to MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin. Smith, on “The Stephen A. Smith Show,” characterized Bragg’s suggestion as a pathetic attempt to keep his conviction of Trump rather than a responsible use of taxpayer resources.
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“When I see Attorney Bragg in New York trying to convince the judge and the courts to treat Donald Trump as if he’s deceased, as if he has died, just to make sure that your convictions on those 34 felony accounts remains a part of the record, it just shows another level of patheticness, if that is such a word, that creeps in,” Smith said. “Once again, you can’t let it go. He is the president-elect of the United States of America.”
Trump’s conviction was on 34 counts for falsifying business records to reimburse his former attorney Michael Cohen for a nondisclosure agreement with porn star Stormy Daniels.
“And January 20th, he is going to be the president of the United States, and you want to sit up here and waste taxpayer dollars and literally go before the courts to do everything you can to make his conviction a matter of record, knowing he ain’t going to get any jail time,” he continued. “You’re not going to be able to incarcerate him. You’re not going to be able to fine him. Sir, it’s over. It’s over. Democrats, it’s over. It’s over.”
Rubin on Dec. 10 was surprised at the lengths which Bragg is going to in order to uphold Trump’s May guilty verdict, emphasizing the abatement suggestion, which she said “basically removes the presumption of innocence” without ever sentencing the defendant.
“They think that would be an okay solution here and it shows you just how far they’ve gone in an attempt to preserve this jury verdict, which they think is fundamental to the constitutional value of the jury process,” Rubin said.
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