Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who has indicted former President Donald Trump, is following a well-trod Democratic playbook.
Just ask former Rep. Tom DeLay, who nearly two decades ago was the Trumpian figure at the core of the conservative movement, using his post as House majority leader to take conservative ideas and forge them into election-winning Republican policies.
That was until a crusading district attorney brought iffy legal charges that knocked Mr. DeLay out of his post. Mr. DeLay was eventually convicted, but a nearly unanimous state appeals court tossed out his conviction.
By then, Mr. DeLay had been taken off the field, which he said was the real point of this kind of prosecution.
“This is a concerted, created political strategy that’s been going on a long time,” Mr. DeLay told The Washington Times by telephone. “What they do is they either get you on ethics charges or they get you indicted by a rogue DA. They want you to be convicted, but each step along the way, it’s bad press.”
Mr. Trump was indicted last week by a grand jury that Mr. Bragg empaneled in New York. The former president is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday.
Mr. Trump is the first former president to face criminal charges.
Legal experts have questioned the underpinnings of Mr. Bragg’s case, which according to all indications is based on a claim that the former president’s hush money paid to pornography actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign violated federal campaign finance laws.
The skeptical experts point out that federal prosecutors and Mr. Bragg’s predecessor as Manhattan district attorney took a pass on the case.
Mr. DeLay said he knows all about that.
Ronnie Earle, the district attorney in Travis County, Texas, got his first indictment against Mr. DeLay on a charge that wasn’t even against the law in 2002 when Mr. DeLay was supposed to have violated it. Mr. Earle then asked a second grand jury to indict, but it refused.
Mr. Earle kept that secret while he rushed to get a third grand jury, newly sworn in, to indict on money laundering and conspiracy charges stemming from how a political action committee managed its money in the 2002 election.
SEE ALSO: Trump brings in new lead defense attorney in hush money case
Mr. Earle eventually got his conviction, but an appeals court found that Mr. DeLay’s PAC did in fact try to comply with the law.
Elliot Berke, Mr. DeLay’s general counsel when he was majority leader, said the prosecution was “an absolute travesty of justice.”
“Earle knew that DeLay would have to step down as majority leader upon indictment,” Mr. Berke said. “Even though the case was thrown out on appeal, the damage to DeLay’s political career was done.”
He added: “From what we know so far about the Trump indictment, it appears to be based on 7-year-old facts that were shopped around various prosecutors at the federal and state level – all of whom passed.”
That Mr. DeLay was eventually exonerated isn’t surprising, and it’s a caution to those who think Mr. Trump should serve prison time. The truth is, that rarely happens in high-profile political prosecutions.
Before he took on Mr. DeLay, Earle indicted Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison on campaign finance charges. He lost that case in fashion. Just minutes into the trial, a judge ordered the jury to acquit the senator.
Earle died in 2020.
Federal prosecutors charged Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska with illegally accepting gifts. He was convicted in 2008. A judge tossed the conviction a year later after revelations of severe Justice Department malfeasance in the case. By then, Stevens had lost reelection.
He died in a plane crash in 2010.
A year later, a full report detailed just how egregious the Justice Department’s misdeeds were in tainting his trial.
The group that prodded Earle to charge Mr. DeLay was Texans for Public Justice. The organization did not respond to an email seeking comment on comparisons to the Trump case.
Mr. DeLay said the prosecutions aren’t random.
“They strategize and organize and build coalitions,” he said. “They pick a target, and then they go find a crime to indict him with.”
He said prosecutors usually go after staffers and then pressure them to take a deal and turn state’s evidence to try to bolster the case against the chief target.
The point, he said, is to wrap up the target in legal distractions, attorneys’ bills and bad press.
Under House Republican rules, Mr. DeLay had to step down from the majority leader’s post once he was indicted. Then-Rep. John A. Boehner took over as majority leader.
Mr. DeLay said his loss at the trial court wasn’t surprising, given the leanings of the Travis County jury pool. He said he figured he would need to reach the appellate level to get a fair shake.
The same may be true of Mr. Trump, who would go on trial in liberal Manhattan. Mr. DeLay called it “the worst place in the world to be tried as a conservative Republican.”
“Things are not going to go well for him,” Mr. DeLay predicted. Mr. Trump and his attorneys say they want a change of venue to more conservative-leaning Staten Island.
Mr. DeLay said his legal fight cost him more than $12 million and he is still paying bills.
Mr. Trump should have no problem paying his legal fees. His own wealth aside, his supporters likely will be eager to foot his bill.
Mr. DeLay said Mr. Trump has another advantage: his ability to use social media to battle in the court of public opinion by going around the television networks and major national news organizations.
Republican voters are already giving Mr. Trump a vote of approval if early opinion polling is a guide.
Mr. Berke, now at his own law firm Berke Farah LLP, served as associate independent counsel for Kenneth W. Starr and Robert Ray during their investigation into President Clinton. He contrasted that with the handling of Mr. Trump’s case.
“In high-profile political corruption cases like this, a fair-minded prosecutor always looks to the best way to serve justice,” he said. “When I worked for Independent Counsel Bob Ray, we were ultimately able to bring the Clinton matter to an end with a reasonable settlement that avoided the former president’s prosecution. Justice was served, and the American people were spared what would have been a painful political circus.”
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect the transition of power after Mr. DeLay was indicted.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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