The District Attorney’s Question

Published in Sankei Shimbun
(Japan) on 7 April 2023
by Yusuke Hirata (link to originallink to original)
Translated from by Dorothy Phoenix. Edited by Michelle Bisson.
It goes without saying that fair elections are the basis of a fair democracy. If candidates are allowed to cover up their own scandals and wrongdoing, democracy is compromised. There is a sense that the indictment of former President Donald Trump on charges alleging he paid hush money to cover up extramarital affairs addresses just such questions.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who is leading the prosecution, contends that Trump, was a candidate in the 2016 presidential election, conspired with close associates, fearful that discovery of past scandals would prove a disadvantage in the election. The crux of Bragg’s case is that Trump made large hush money payments as part of an unlawful scheme.

The indictment charges Trump with 34 felony counts related to unlawful acts as part of the scheme, and I understand that Bragg is also raising the question of whether Trump unlawfully “conceal[ed] damaging information and unlawful activity from American voters before and after the 2016 election.”

Bragg, a 49-year-old Black man born in Harlem, New York, studied at Harvard Law School, where he served as editor of the Harvard Civil Rights–Civil Liberties Law Review, the school’s law journal that deals with civil and human rights issues. Black people in the United States have a long history of leading civil rights movements.

After Trump was indicted and claimed he was completely innocent, Bragg’s office received credible death threats and packages of white powder.. Though the motives are unclear, it is bizarre that some people have reacted this way to an indictment that entails lawful due process.


地方検事の問い

公正な選挙は民主主義の基盤であることは論をまたない。その選挙で、候補者が自身の醜聞や不正を違法な手段で隠蔽することを許せば、民主主義を危うくする-。過去の不倫疑惑の口止め料を巡って起訴されたトランプ前米大統領に、検察側が突きつけた起訴状には、そんな問いかけが込められていたと感じる。

捜査責任者のブラッグ検事は、2016年大統領選に出馬したトランプ氏が、選挙で不利となる醜聞の発覚を恐れて側近らと共謀。多額の口止め料を支払った「非合法な計画」を事件の核心に据えている。

トランプ氏が問われた34の罪状はすべて、この計画の中で起きた違法行為に関するもので、ブラッグ氏は起訴を通じ、「有権者が投票に際して知るべき重要な情報を隠すのは不当だ」と問題提起をしたのだと、私は受け止めている。

ブラッグ氏は、ニューヨーク・ハーレム生まれの黒人で49歳。ハーバード法科大学院の学生時代、公民権や人権に関する法学雑誌の編集に携わった。米国の公民権運動は黒人指導者が率いた長い歴史がある。
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