Donald Trump indicted: Ratcliffe says Manhattan DA case ‘clearly unconstitutional’

Former Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, has declared that the legal theory applied to indict former President Donald Trump is “clearly unconstitutional”. He criticized Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures, saying that Bragg is trying to bring federal charges against Trump, which he does not have the power to do so.

Even legal experts agree that the legal argument is both absurd and pathetic. Ratcliffe further emphasizes that the theory that Bragg is advancing in this case is not consistent with the law. Both the Federal Government’s Department of Justice and the Federal Election Commission have already released similar statements.

The only felony in the case would have been committed by either Bragg or a member of the grand jury that indicted him because the information from the sealed indictment has been leaked. Leaking grand jury information is a felony, and so the only people capable of that would be Alvin Bragg’s team or members of the grand jury itself.

The former president is set to be arraigned in Manhattan on Tuesday, and the charges are set to be unsealed after he is arraigned, per New York state law. He is the first former president to be criminally indicted.

Prosecutors in New York City investigated allegedly falsified business records regarding a $130,000 reimbursement of Trump’s then-lawyer Michael Cohen for paying off porn star Stormy Daniels to stay quiet about an alleged affair she had with Trump. The payment was made in 2016, in the midst of one of Trump’s presidential runs.