JUDGMENT WEEK: HOW PROSECUTORS WILL USE THE ‘OTHER CRIME’ AGAINST TRUMP. On Tuesday, a jury in Manhattan will hear closing arguments in the trial of former President Donald Trump. Local prosecutors allege Trump committed bookkeeping offenses as part of a conspiracy to corrupt the 2016 presidential election. The former president’s specific crime, prosecutors say, was labeling a nondisclosure agreement negotiated by his lawyer as a “legal expense” in Trump Organization books.

But bookkeeping offenses, even when done by Trump, are misdemeanors in New York, so prosecutors sought to raise the seriousness of the charge by alleging an additional crime. They haven’t said so precisely, but in court papers, they have offered a “theory” in which Trump, in addition to the bookkeeping, violated a New York state election law barring the “conspiracy to promote or prevent election … by unlawful means.” That is also a misdemeanor, but Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg argues that the two misdemeanors, when taken together, add up to 34 felony charges and a maximum sentence of 136 years in prison for Trump. Such is the state of the justice system in New York.