Last week, a businessman was convicted of feloniously and fraudulently making business entries in furtherance of another crime. He was indicted by a duly empaneled grand jury based on evidence brought by a duly elected district attorney. He was prosecuted in a public courtroom in front of an experienced and well-respected judge. The evidence and witnesses against him were known in advance and subject to vigorous cross examination by his expert attorneys. He was allowed to put evidence on his own defense. He was found guilty by a jury of his peers he helped to pick.

The rule of law was upheld and the system worked.

Last week, Donald Trump — the past president and presumptive Republican nominee for president — was convicted less than five months before the general election of charges never before prosecuted as they were against him. He was indicted on expired misdemeanors that were oragami’d into felonies through allegations they were to further another (unspecified) crime. He was prosecuted on a theory that he tried to cover up an illicit affair with a porn star to keep that fact from impacting his campaign for president. The Democrat district attorney (Alvin Bragg) campaigned for office on his prowess in going after Trump and promised to continue to do so. The jury was selected from a populace that voted 85% to 15% for Trump’s past and current political opponent, President Joe Biden. The judge who oversaw the case donated to Biden in 2020. Oh, and it was the first time in American history a past president had ever been prosecuted.

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The rule of law was upheld and the system worked?

Trump haters like the first description of the trial, and Trump lovers the second. Both are true. So, now what?

I have spent a 33-year career in the law — as a career prosecutor, defense attorney and military practitioner on both sides — trusting jury verdicts represent justice, because of my faith in the system that produced them. Jury trials are not about perfection — no human endeavor could achieve such a standard (it is why we have appellate courts); jury trials are about minimizing the opportunity for error and making it difficult for the government to convict its constituents. My faith is that an experienced prosecutor, knowledgeable of the law and limited by it, grounded in the values of the community they serve and committed to the concept of truth would generate cases only in the pursuit of justice — nothing else.

And then this happened.

Candidly, I struggle with how to value the jury’s verdict here. Should this specific verdict impact a decision about how to vote this November?

To be clear, the jury is blameless. They were compelled to come to court to do their civic duty, their lives were involuntarily interrupted and they did not get to pick this historic, intensely scrutinized case to serve on. They are presumed to have acted true to their oaths and consistent with the law read to them — even if that law was convoluted and not given to the jury to have during deliberations.

So much of the rest of this case troubles me.

The motive and conduct of the prosecutor — Alvin Bragg — bothers me. The New York Times stated Bragg “campaigned as the best candidate to go after the former president,” which is a cardinal sin for public prosecutors. His prosecution theory had never been pursued before against anyone, let alone a past president. Admittedly, no past president should ever enjoy immunity from their criminal conduct. Yet, this looks like Trump is being targeted because he was the past president and because he is a candidate for president again.

There are two huge questions, the answers to which are dispositive of whether this case is being prosecuted for political advantage. First, would Bragg have prosecuted Trump in 2024, if Trump had lost the 2016 election? Second, would Bragg have prosecuted Trump if he retired from politics after gracefully conceding his 2020 election loss? For Bragg’s prosecution not to be politically motivated, the answer to both questions must be yes. No reasonable person can believe that, even if they hate Trump.

There is more. For Bragg’s prosecution not to be intended to influence the upcoming presidential election, it must be a matter of pure coincidence that Bragg impaneled a new grand jury for this case only two months after Trump announced his bid for president. It must be further coincidence that Bragg objected to any continuance of the trial to a date beyond the November election. A prosecution premised on events eight years ago would be unaffected by an eight-month delay. No reasonable person could believe that.

Bragg’s clear intention was to ensure the convictions he sought be known to Americans before they vote. For what it’s worth, only 38% of Americans polled (ABC/Ipsos) after the verdict believe the prosecution was not politically motivated.

So, if a politically motivated prosecutor brings a first-of-its-kind prosecution on tortured charges against a person for the purposes of influencing a presidential election — should the resulting guilty verdict be treated like those earned in apolitical courts every day, all over the country, for things like murder, rape, robbery, burglary, white-collar crimes, etc.? Per Bragg, Trump’s crime was making false entries in a business record in order to keep a consensual affair with a porn star who was willingly paid for her silence from costing him votes. I’m shocked, shocked a politician would do such a thing (read with sarcasm). Who is the victim? Is this as bad as lying under oath for the same purpose (looking at you, Bill Clinton)?

Politics is poison for public prosecution and this case is bathed in politics. It’s a pox on everyone who brought us to this place. And the rule of law survives?

George Brauchler is the former district attorney for the 18th Judicial District and is a candidate for district attorney in the newly created 23rd Judicial District. He has served as an Owens Early Criminal Justice Fellow at the Common Sense Institute. Follow him on Twitter(X): @GeorgeBrauchler.