Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg may have been asked to delay bringing charges against former President Trump, Watergate figure John Dean speculated in a CNN interview on Friday.
Dean emphasized that he did not know the facts, but commented on the possibility that another lawyer on a separate Trump case might have asked Bragg to hold back.
“The on and off nature of the Manhattan grand jury doesn’t to me suggest that the D.A., Bragg, has suddenly discovered he’s got a weak case,” Dean told CNN host John Berman.
“I think he’s got a grand jury who might not want more witnesses, and you know, there’s a remote possibility, John, that some other prosecutor contacted him and said ‘do you really have to go first?’
“He knows his isn’t the strongest, most presidential-type case that is going to be presented against Trump. And he might have been asked to delay, and drag his feet a little while, because some of these other cases might be ripe for action.
“I don’t know that as a fact. It just occurred to me the way this grand jury has been on-again, off-again,” concluded Dean, a former White House counsel who testified to Congress on the Watergate scandal that led to President Nixon’s resignation. He added that “prosecutors do have those kind of off-the-record conversations.”
Bragg is investigating Trump for potential financial crimes related to how the former president recorded 2016 hush money payments to two women who allege they had affairs with him. Trump denies having the affairs, but admitted that he paid the two women a combined $280,000 for their silence in the run-up to the 2016 election.
Trump reported payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels as salary to his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. Prosecutors believe that the payments were actually campaign expenses.
Trump is facing four criminal investigations, one by Bragg in New York, two in Washington, D.C., regarding his involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection and Trump’s alleged illegal handling of classified documents, and one in Georgia investigating whether Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 election there.
Trump announced last week that he believed that he would be arrested this past Tuesday on charges from Bragg’s probe. In Truth Social posts since, Trump has called for protests and violence if he is arrested, calling on his supporters to “take our nation back,” echoing rhetoric from the Jan. 6 insurrection.
On Friday, Trump said that his arrest would result in “potential death and destruction” in another late-night post railing against Bragg. Similarly, on Thursday Trump called for the removal of each official investigating him in the four probes.
Dean said that Trump’s social media comments have not helped his case, and that he expects the Manhattan grand jury to decide whether to bring charges next week.
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