Opinion | DAs should be elected. Bragg’s pursuit of Trump shows why. (2024)

It’s true, as Mr. Will noted, that prosecutors wield enormous discretion, and that they can campaign on promises to target certain lawless individuals, as Mr. Bragg did in his pledge to hold Donald Trump “accountable.” This can be a benefit of the system, not the risk Mr. Will makes it out to be.

If a person or group is widely believed to be flouting the law, it makes sense for a candidate to pledge vigorous investigations and prosecutions, should the evidence warrant them. History confirms public support for targeting suspected wrongdoers. Before he became a governor and presidential candidate, New York prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey targeted mobsters Dutch Schultz and Lucky Luciano and their henchmen. Though Eliot Ness managed to convict Al Capone only on charges of tax evasion, not the pattern of murders and corruption for which Capone was notorious, the public felt vindicated that the system had done something about the gangster.

And just as electing prosecutors can give the public a way to voice outrage about a specific person’s lawlessness, these elections allow voters to choose a broader approach to law enforcement. At different times and in different locales, their primary concern might be cracking down on drug sales or decriminalizing drug use, cleaning up street crime or tackling white-collar crime and public corruption. If voters are not happy with the results, they can turn the prosecutor out of office at the next election or even organize a recall, such as the one set to take place in Alameda County, Calif., this fall.

The alternative Mr. Will implies has its own set of serious downsides. If mayors or governors appoint district attorneys, those DAs will lack the independence to pursue public corruption cases. Presidential appointment of federal prosecutors hardly insulates them from political pressures or accusations of partisan targeting. Attorney General Merrick Garland and special counsel Jack Smith were both appointed, not elected. This has not spared them from unfounded charges that they are politically motivated to “get Trump.”

Mr. Will’s attack on the system of elected DAs in general, and on Mr. Bragg in particular, undermines the legitimacy of the system he says he wants to bolster. Mr. Trump’s supporters complain that, as they see it, the criminal justice system has been “weaponized” to “get” the former president; Mr. Will just gave them another reason to shrug off Mr. Trump’s felony convictions. As long as Mr. Trump’s fans can tell themselves that the real problem is the system and not Mr. Trump, America will struggle to hold him accountable, no matter how our district attorneys get their jobs.

Philip Allen Lacovara, Washington

The writer previously served as deputy U.S. solicitor general, counsel to the Watergate special prosecutor and president of the District of Columbia Bar.

In his June 13 op-ed, George F. Will complained about the prosecution of Donald Trump as being a strictly political effort by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to gain popularity with potential voters in some imagined future campaign for higher office. Yet the legal argument for the Trump prosecution still stands.

It seems to me that the witnesses and the evidence provided to the jury in the trial clearly supported the prosecutors’ case that Trump falsified business records illegally to hide hush money payments to an adult-film actress in an effort to influence the 2016 election because it would look bad to voters that he’d had an affair with her. The jurors had no problem understanding the case as it was presented to them.

Mr. Will seems to believe that a mild sentence is appropriate and that Mr. Bragg should exercise leniency in his sentencing recommendation. Robert H. Jackson, the attorney general whom Mr. Will quoted, made reasonable arguments about prosecutorial discretion in sentencing recommendations. Perhaps Mr. Bragg will pay attention to them in his determination.

Mr. Will can do what he likes with his columns, but I think he should pick political issues of real importance and not go after duly elected officials who are only doing their jobs.

Jared Wermiel, Silver Spring

In disparaging Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s motives for prosecuting Donald Trump, George F. Will quoted a 1940 speech about the role of federal prosecutors by the attorney general at the time, Robert H. Jackson: “The prosecutor has more control over life, liberty, and reputation than any other person in America. ... While the prosecutor at his best is one of the most beneficent forces in our society, when he acts from malice or other base motives, he is one of the worst.”

It is unclear to this reader how these words apply to Mr. Bragg’s prosecution of Mr. Trump’s crimes, especially given how much emphasis Jackson’s speech placed on the idea that federal prosecutors should not run roughshod over local district attorneys. They are, however, a prescient reminder that any public official who acts with malice or other base motives is a threat to our society: That very much includes Mr. Trump.

As Jackson went on to say in the same speech: “Reputation has been called ‘the shadow cast by one’s daily life.’”

Karen Johnson, Annandale

There is incontrovertible irony in George F. Will’s op-ed on Alvin Bragg. Mr. Will professed concern for how this prosecutor had the gall to charge Donald Trump for what Mr. Will apparently sees as the former president’s seemingly minor attempt to deceive the voting public and conduct his business in a fraudulent matter. But something was missing. Where was Mr. Will’s indignation over the delays imposed by jurists in even more significant cases against Mr. Trump that are pending in other states? Where was his concern that justice delayed is justice denied?

Jeff Oltchick, Bradenton, Fla.

George F. Will was correct in his op-ed about how Alvin Bragg played it fast and loose with the charges against Donald Trump. However, Mr. Will missed an important part of why Mr. Trump was convicted. As I see it, the reason the former president was convicted was because he dictated to his defense lawyers what their legal strategy should be. Mr. Trump did not want his defense team to tell the jury and the nation that he had slept with adult-film actress Stormy Daniels. Mr. Trump clearly would have been embarrassed by this testimony, even though there was nothing illegal about this assignation.

If Mr. Trump had not hamstrung his legal team, he might well have been acquitted or at least had a hung jury.

Lee Hurwitz, Rockville

There is a simple answer to the question raised by the June 13 editorial, “Is there a legislative fix for judicial overreach?” The Post has identified a real problem: Single district court judges have the power to halt actions of the federal government across the entire country. And because they have that power, and because the judges themselves have varying and widely known predilections and judicial philosophies, plaintiffs can place their complaints before a judge most likely to give them the outcome they want.

The solution is for Congress to forbid so-called national injunctions except when issued by a panel of three federal judges. The use of these panels was the law until 1976, when Congress removed that requirement in most circ*mstances.

The rules governing those panels should also guarantee a variety of perspectives among the judges hearing such weighty matters. In addition to the district judge to whom the case was assigned, the panel would include two appeals court judges, randomly selected, one from the circuit in which the case was filed and one from another circuit. Ideally, that other judge would come from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit because of its vast experience with administrative law issues, but that option might not be politically possible.

This fix does not resolve the initial problem of plaintiffs shopping for friendly district court forums. But it significantly reduces the ability of one district judge to decide the law for the whole country.

The Trump and Biden administrations agree on almost nothing, except for their strong dislike of national injunctions. With the presidential election very much up in the air, this uncertainty presents Congress with an opportunity to do the right thing on national injunctions now, without worrying about the political consequences of the vote.

Alan B. Morrison, Washington

The writer is an associate dean at George Washington University Law School, where he teaches civil procedure and constitutional law.