Conservative legal scholar Mark Levin believes there’s an argument to be made for why Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg should be disbarred in New York over his handling of Michael Cohen’s testimony.
Appearing on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program late last week, Levin explained that the Democratic prosecutor may be found guilty of violating the federal Brady rule which requires the government to produce all “exculpatory evidence” that will be germane to proceedings. In Cohen’s case, Levin contends, Bragg failed to provide Trump’s attorneys with a mountain of evidence about how unreliable their witness was with his past words.
“Sean, it’s my opening argument on why Alvin Bragg should be disbarred, why he should be facing a — charges for suborning perjury which I’ve talked about on my radio show for the last three days, and also why he’s in violation of the Brady [Rule],” Levin told Hannity when the host asked him what his closing argument would be in the case
He continued, “We have very smart lawyers, some fairly smart lawyers who are talking about this case. They’re all saying the same thing in a different way because the case is so outrageous, we’re running out of words and explanations for it. None of us have ever seen anything like this. You have collateral evidence which is unconstitutional, you have somebody being charged and he’s not sure what he’s charged with which is unconstitutional. You have all kinds of allegations being made which are absolutely outrageous, not relevant. You have a dead state statute that remains dead today that’s being used. You have a federal campaign law and nobody knows exactly what part of the federal campaign law we’re talking about. And so, I want to talk about Alvin Bragg rather than keep talking about the same thing.”
In the 1963 Brady v. Maryland case, the Supreme Court ruled that the “prosecutor must not withhold exculpatory evidence, must be given to the defense and in fact, if they know that evidence is false or might be false, they’re not supposed to use it,” Levin explained. If prosecutors know “that there is materially false information that [Cohen] may give or any lawyer for that, they are not to present that person.”
“Now, exculpatory evidence, the Supreme Court says, well, we have exculpatory evidence. Robert — has been here — Costello — on all these shows, look, he’s not Stormy Daniels. This guy is the former deputy chief of the criminal division of the Southern District of New York, does it get any higher than that? And he was Cohen’s lawyer for a critical period of time, and he’s been on my show, Saturday, he’s been on other shows, he was on a show this morning, he testified before Congress under oath, and he said, look, this guy’s a liar, I was his lawyer, I have 300 emails, I have contemporaneous information, I’m telling you he’s a liar, on top of all the other lies the guy has told. And nobody wants this guy as a witness. That’s why the U.S. attorney’s office didn’t want him. That’s why Vance didn’t want him. That’s why Bragg initially didn’t want him.”
By vouching for the veracity of Cohen’s testimony, Bragg has opened himself up to allegations that he failed to inform the jury about just how extensive Cohen’s past lies were, Levin concluded.
“So when that government witness is on the stand, that means the district attorney and the government are vouching for the truth, the integrity, for the testimony of that witness and that witness was put up there despite the fact that the government knew from these emails of Mr. Costello’s testimony that he’s a liar,” he said. Whether or not the case gets tossed on a Brady violation, the jury could still find that Cohen is materially damaged as a witness with an axe to grind against his former boss.
“Bragg put Cohen on the stand after obviously they worked with him. They knew what he was going to say. Any prosecutor does that, they let them know what kind of questions are going to ask in other words part of this is performance art. Bragg knew that there were material matters that implicated Cohen. He was aware of it, information, contemporary emails, Mr. Costello’s testimony among others. That’s directly contradicted what his own attorney said and what others have said, and he still put him on that stand and this is material information, this is their key witness. Look at the texts, we still don’t know about the texts. Well, that’s an important issue, too. Did this government not have his texts? If they had the text, did they give it to the defense? How did the defense get the texts?”
