Trump’s the ham sandwich in Bragg’s Banana Republic

OPINION:

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg wants you to know that he takes “white-collar crime” very, very seriously.

“True and accurate business records are important everywhere, to be sure. They are all the more important in Manhattan — the financial center of the world,” he said this week. “That is why we have a history in the Manhattan DA’s office of vigorously enforcing white-collar crime.”

Mr. Bragg is so serious about taking “white-collar crime” very, very seriously that he has charged former President Donald Trump with 34 counts of “white collar crime.” Mr. Trump faces the possibility of 136 years in prison.

That would be Donald Trump, the former president, the real estate mogul, and the reality TV star. Now, the ham sandwich. In the Banana Republic of New York City.

Mr. Bragg takes “white-collar crime” so very, very seriously that if he has his way, Mr. Trump will be 212 years old when he gets out of prison. Mr. Trump’s youngest son, Barron — who is very tall, according to Mr. Trump — will be 153 years old when Mr. Trump gets out.

Which raises a few interesting questions about the zealous pursuit of “white collar crime” in Manhattan since Mr. Bragg first began buying his super-size meals with a public paycheck working as a prosecutor. He has been top DA for only one year. In that time, he has gone after Mr. Trump, Trump political adviser Steven Bannon and a bodega clerk who defended himself and his store with a knife from a violent thug amid the skyrocketing crime wave since Mr. Bragg became top DA.

“We cannot and will not normalize serious criminal conduct,” Mr. Bragg also said, as violent crime spins out of control and brazen thieves take over stores that were designed for civilized people. But “white-collar crime.”

Mr. Bragg takes “white-collar crime” so seriously that he is willing to step over the dead bodies piling up in New York City to pursue “white-collar crime.” As opposed to, you know, deadly crime. Or raping crime. Or violent crime. Or shoved onto the subway tracks crime.

Even long before Mr. Bragg became Manhattan DA, he was working as a prosecutor, allegedly taking “white-collar crime” very seriously. He began, for instance, working for then-New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in 2003. 

Please don’t ask where Eliot Spitzer is now. Let’s just say “Client No. 9” apparently liked his “black socks” more than he cared about “white-collar crime.” Or, put another way, if “White-Collar Crime” were a hooker’s dance name, Mr. Spitzer might have more zealously pursued “White-Collar Crime.” But only with his “black socks” on.

Anyway, that’s where Mr. Bragg learned to go after “white-collar crime.”

In his two decades drifting in and out of various New York prosecutors’ offices, however, Mr. Bragg seems to have missed some pretty major “white-collar crimes.” 

Take, for example, Bernie Madoff. Prosecutors ignored Madoff’s crimes for decades until finally, Madoff’s sons openly accused their father of “white-collar crime.” Only then did Madoff go to prison for the rest of his life.

Then there was the banking crisis of 2008 in which federal politicians colluded with major Wall Street bankers to make ludicrously dangerous housing loans and then hide them in the investment portfolios of innocent Americans. Innocent investors went bankrupt, lost their homes and lost their jobs.

The Wall Street bankers got bailed out by innocent taxpayers, and the federal politicians got more power. Just ONE American banker went to jail. Because Alvin Bragg takes “white-collar crime” very, very seriously.

The truth is, Mr. Bragg doesn’t really care about any kind of crime, “white collar” or otherwise. But somebody said that as Manhattan DA, he could turn anyone into a ham sandwich by indicting them, and it would make New York a Banana Republic. Poor guy was hungry.

So he turned Mr. Trump into a ham sandwich and got his Banana Republic. 

God save the country.

• Charles Hurt is the opinion editor at The Washington Times.