Expert Analysis of the Trump Arraignment

Paul: For me, I think that one of the surprises I see here is that the underlying crime of the -- obviously you mentioned falsification and business records, but what makes it a felony is that it was done in furtherance of another crime, and that crime here, it appears to be election related.

Campaign-finance related.

There is a possibility we are going to see more of a reliance on potential tax fraud charges and so forth.

It also does contain a reference to federal election violation, which is because it is an open question under New York law whether or not that other crime, for purposes of New York law, can be a federal offense.

There are surprises here, but overall, it is not that surprising.

The number of counts is due to the fact that under New York law, if there are multiple crimes charged under one count, the results could be dismissal, so the prosecutors were careful to charge every separate instance separately.

Sara: Paul, can I ask you about this day?

It is historic.

I don't think it is a day anyone could have imagined happening the way it has happened to a former U.S. president.

This has never happened before.

Paul: That is correct.

One suspects that had Ford not pardoned Nixon, we would have seen an indictment of Nixon, but the carbon made that irrelevant.

We have never had a situation in which a former president of the United States has been charged with a criminal offense, never had a situation with which he has been arrested, fingerprinted, released, eventually subject to jury trial.

This is quite an extraordinary event.

Of course, on the other hand, we have had lots of instances of indictments and trials of vice presidents, Senators, members of the House of Representatives, and governors galore.

Perhaps the strangeness is that it has never happened to a president before.

Sara: Let me ask you now about what this means politically.

Here we are, we know that the Trump team has said they have raised millions of dollars on the backs of this, putting this out there that they were being politically prosecuted.

We have just heard from the attorneys from Donald Trump who have come out and said the same, that they were actually surprised that there were not more and varying charges here, that this was really related to what everyone thought it might be related to, which is some potential campaign-finance violations there.

Can you talk to me about the politics around this, Paul?

Paul: I think the politics are tied to the lack of any surprise.

This has been pretty much baked into everybody's understanding of Mr. Trump since 2017-2018, when the Stormy Daniels story first became public.

There is literally nobody in America who cares about this at all that was surprised with this information.

It will probably solidify his base, but it will not bring back to Trump any independent voters that might not think of returning to the Republican fold.

The bottom line is it is pretty much a wash politically.

Sara: I want to now ask you about the strength of this case.

I want to ask the question to Renato.

You are a former federal prosecutor.

I know you host a podcast.

I know you have not gotten a chance to really dig down and read into this, but the statement of facts is now 13 pages.

Does any of this look to you like a weak or strong case, or can you tell at this point?

Renato: We have to be cautious, because we do not know all the evidence the D.A. has.

That said, there are certainly concerns regarding this case.

As a starting point, as I mentioned earlier, there is definitely a focus on campaign-finance crimes here.

I think jurors are going to have trouble seeing this as a campaign-finance issue.

Obviously, as Paul said, I think a lot of voters understand the president was paying off Paramore's and so forth.

But the question is whether that is an expense related to his campaign.

There is some language in the indictment that explains a little bit about why the D.A.

thinks he has the evidence to prove that.

But I do think it is an open question that creates a risk for the prosecutors.

Another element that creates risk is in a falsification of business records case, there is not a false statement made to a victim.

In a typical fraud case, -indicted back in my day, certainly as a prosecutor on the defense side trying many fraud cases, there you have fraud statements to another person for the purpose of tricking them out of their money.

Falsification of business records under New York law is really about falsifying internal company records.

It is just a case that does not have the same appeal to a jury.

I think the other issue to deal with are there witnesses.

Michael Cohen is a convicted liar and fraudster.

He has also developed his own podcast attacking Donald Trump and so on.

I do think there are issues with the Manhattan D.A. to work on.

This is not one of those obvious slamdunk kind of cases that people might say, like a classified documents case, that would be a stronger case.

But regardless, the former president will have to deal with it.