Here we go again.

Another Soros-funded Democrat prosecutor takes aim at President Donald Trump.

Fearing they cannot legitimately beat him at the ballot box, they resort to open, politically-motivated lawfare to keep him out of office.

We’ve endured four years of Mueller's failed "Russiagate" hoax, two failed, politically-driven impeachment trials from radical House Democrats in Congress driven by Nancy Pelosi, not to mention the highly-partisan “January 6” Committee that failed to call a single witness adverse to their pre-cooked “it-was-an-insurrection” narrative, and a host of other Trump-related political prosecutions.

But now, this weekend's announcement from President Trump that he expects to be indicted on Tuesday in Manhattan forecasts the most radical tactic yet that the Democrats will use to block Trump's return to power: lawfare with unfounded charges in the criminal courts.

Let’s be clear. The feds have already declined to prosecute anything surrounding Trump's civil settlement with Stormy Daniels. Perhaps that is because confidentiality clauses are part of millions of civil settlements in lawsuits around the country every day. I’ve seen hundreds in my own career as a civil litigator.

In other words, nothing to see here.

Enter radical Democrat prosecutor Alvin Bragg, the most recent publicity-seeking Trump-hunter, most noted for releasing criminals onto the streets while reducing over half of pending felony charges to misdemeanors.

This is the same Alvin Bragg who in January 2022 released his notorious “soft-on-crime” memo urging his prosecutors to take it easy on New York’s thug population. Remember that memo?  Bragg ordered his office to decline to prosecute certain “low-level” offenses like drug possession and to dismiss pending cases initiated by the previous administration considered to be “low-level.” But even worse, Bragg ordered his prosecutors to back off on cash bail in most cases, making it easier for criminals to return to the streets pending trial.

Bragg turns a blind eye to hardcore crime, kowtowing to BLM radicals and Antifa arsonists. His policies embolden criminals in the city. The president of the New York City Detectives Endowment Association, Paul DiGiacomo, blames lax policies and releasing street criminals for the murder of New York police officers Jason Rivera and Wilbert Mora.

Yet, while Democrat Bragg goes soft on real crime, sprinkling pixie dust and granting hall passes galore for real thugs and criminals, suddenly he's hard on Trump.

Wonder why?

Consider Bragg’s support from leftist, George Soros-funded organizations: Make the Road New York (MRNY), Color of Change PAC, and Real Justice PAC.

And we wonder why Democrat Bragg is on a witch-hunt for Trump.

Bragg's predecessor in office, former Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr, considered the same "Stormy Daniels" issues and declined to prosecute Trump. So, Bragg dismissed cases that Vance had pending, but resurrects cases that Vance declined to prosecute.

What an interesting approach.

Bragg is a new breed compared to the more measured, judicious Mr. Vance, whose father served as Jimmy Carter's level-headed Secretary of State.

Bragg, in contrast to Vance, is an openly radical Soros prosecutor, freely willing to turn his office into a criminal hatchet-job factory for the advancement of Democrat political causes. When in the New York Attorney General’s office, he once bore the title Executive Deputy Attorney General for “Social Justice.” He stands alongside like-minded prosecutor radicals like George Gascón in Los Angeles, Kim Foxx in Chicago, Kim Ogg in Houston, Julie Gunnigle in Phoenix, Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, and John Creuzon in Dallas, all love objects of Soros’s support. This is part of the new Democrat game plan. If you can’t beat ‘em at the polls, destroy ‘em in court.

Last week, famed constitutional lawyer Alan Dershowitz, a Democrat and political opponent of President Trump, compared these political prosecutions to southern prosecutors cooking up charges against civil rights advocates in the 1950s. Said Dershowitz, “When I was coming of age in the 1950s Southern prosecutors would target civil rights workers and search for any possible violation of the law, no matter how technical. If they discovered or invented a violation, they would indict, prosecute, convict and sentence the target… That, precisely, is what we are now seeing with the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, targeting the former president and current candidate, Donald Trump.”

Georgetown constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley, also a Democrat and also a political opponent of the president, says that Bragg is “outside of his lane,” for trying to concoct a federal crime against Pres. Trump that the feds already declined to prosecute.

Professors Dershowitz and Turley are both dead on.

But back to Bragg. Apart from seeking attention for himself, Bragg's scheme against President Trump could not be more obvious. By manufacturing felony charges on cooked-up, fantastical Stormy Daniels legal theories, Bragg knows that at least 20 states have laws, which, in one way or another, prohibit convicted felons from running for public office or otherwise appearing on state-wide ballots.

A cooked-up felony charge brought before a liberal, left-wing Manhattan political jury would mean a certain conviction for Trump, regardless of the facts, or the law.

With a felony conviction on the President’s record, Bragg becomes the savior of the leftist crusade, blocking its greatest arch-nemesis, Donald J. Trump, from getting on ballots in states Trump needs to win, like Texas, Tennessee, Florida, Mississippi, Georgia, Arkansas, Arizona, and Alabama, all of which, to one degree or another, have laws prohibiting felons from seeking public office. 

That’s the Democrat mindset.

But not so fast.

Bragg has a problem -- the United States Constitution -- that old document that oftentimes irritates the heck out of the Democrat party, and occasionally stands in the way of overreaching leftist power grabs.

When it comes to the presidency, Article II of the Constitution sets out only three basic requirements: (1) The President must be at least 35 years old, (2) The President must be a natural-born citizen of the United States, and (3) The President must have been a resident of the United States for at least 14 years.

Note the absence of anything about a “felony conviction,” anywhere in the Constitution.

Constitutionally, not even a Bragg-manufactured “felony conviction” can stop Trump from serving again. But that won’t stop the Left from fighting to keep Trump off the ballots in these states. Why should the Constitution stand in their way?

Thus, if Bragg’s felony conviction scheme succeeds, a likelihood considering no Republican, and especially not Trump, can get a fair trial in New Woke City, the Trump campaign should sue in federal court in each of these states, for declaratory judgment. Trump should argue that no state law, and no federal law, if one existed, can block him from seeking the presidency, or appearing on the ballot, regardless of Democrat Bragg’s lawfare strategy currently underway in the criminal courts in Manhattan. 

State legislatures must rein in out-of-control political prostitute prosecutors like Alvin Bragg, who abuse their offices to advance a political end-game. In the meantime, rest assured that the Constitution will not allow him to succeed in the scheme.

Don Brown, a former U.S. Navy JAG officer, is the author of the book Travesty of Justice: The Shocking Prosecution of Lieutenant Clint Lorance and CALL SIGN EXTORTION 17: The Shootdown of SEAL Team Six, and the author of 15 books on the United States Military, including three national bestsellers.  He was one of four former JAG officers serving on the Lorance legal team. Lorance was pardoned by President Trump in November 2019.  Brown is also a former military prosecutor, and a former Special Assistant United States Attorney.  He can be reached at donbrownbooks@gmail.com and on Twitter @donbrownbooks.

Image: Gage Skidmore