Nothing has turned out this week the way that the left anticipated. The most devoted radicals had dreams of Donald Trump being perp-walked out of Mar-a-Lago after Trump himself posted that an arrest was going to happen this last Tuesday.

It was everything they had ever dreamed of, seemingly within their grasp. They had been hoping for this since 2017, at least.

SUPERCUT!

The walls have been closing in on Trump since 2017 pic.twitter.com/XnSDD25NOx

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) March 23, 2023

And then nothing happened. Trump’s team backed off the arrest claim for Tuesday. The grand jury wasn’t meeting. A supposed protest that journalists were desperate to turn into the next January 6th ended up having more reporters than protesters attending. Giant iceberg sized holes in the case began to come to light in the media. The office of DA Alvin Bragg was reportedly in turmoil. It was revealed that Michael Cohen’s lawyer had written a letter in 2018 attesting that the payment to Stormy Daniels – the supposed “hush money” that was FINALLY going to snare the Bad Orange Man in federal campaign finance violations – had been made by Michael Cohen alone, and that he had never been reimbursed by Trump or the Trump campaign.

The letter, obtained by The Post on Wednesday, emerged as the disbarred lawyer appeared poised to become the star witness in an unprecedented criminal case against his ex-boss, former President Donald Trump.”

In it, Cohen told the Federal Election Commission that he “used his own personal funds to facilitate a payment of $130,000 to Ms. Stephanie Clifford,” aka Daniels, in 2016.”

“Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed Mr. Cohen for the payment directly or indirectly,” Cohen lawyer Stephen Ryan wrote on Feb. 8, 2018.”

But a little more than six months later, Cohen changed his tune and copped a plea to a laundry list of federal crimes that included making an excessive campaign contribution to Trump, now 76, by paying Daniels to keep quiet about her alleged 2006 affair with him.”

Also popping a hole in the left’s dreams of a perp walk was Cohen’s filing with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) that the payment to Stormy Daniels had nothing to do with the Trump campaign.

Cohen didn’t just writer a letter. He officially filed THIS with the FEC, formally asserting that his payment to Daniels was NOT campaign-related. He changed his story later, though. https://t.co/kwbbZBEwKT pic.twitter.com/mVmyqlNofd

— FoiaFan (@15poundstogo) March 23, 2023

No less a figure than the infamous Michael Avenatti stated that if this entire case was built on Michael Cohen, then Alvin Bragg would lose.

Donald Trump continues to rant on Truth Social about what dire things may happen if he is indicted.
https://twitter.com/wavechaser2024/status/1639224304536567815
Let’s leave Trump’s reaction to the side for the moment. The real issue at hand is this weak and politically motivated campaign finance law case, which is already problematic because the feds have passed on the entire thing, and Alvin Bragg is a DA who is supposed to enforce state law. If the case truly is about campaign finance law, then it’s a federal case that belongs in federal court. Legal professor Jonathan Turley picked apart that angle earlier this week, along with the problem that Bragg is trying to stretch a misdemeanor into a felony.

Although it may be politically popular, the case is legally pathetic. Bragg is struggling to twist state laws to effectively prosecute a federal case long ago rejected by the Justice Department against Trump over his payment of “hush money” to former stripper Stormy Daniels. In 2018 (yes, that is how long this theory has been around), I wrote how difficult such a federal case would be under existing election laws. Now, six years later, the same theory may be shoehorned into a state claim.”

It is extremely difficult to show that paying money to cover up an embarrassing affair was done for election purposes as opposed to an array of obvious other reasons, from protecting a celebrity’s reputation to preserving a marriage. That was demonstrated by the failed federal prosecution of former presidential candidate John Edwards on a much stronger charge of using campaign funds to cover up an affair.”

While we still do not know the specific state charges in the anticipated indictment, the most-discussed would fall under Section 175 for falsifying business records, based on the claim that Trump used legal expenses to conceal the alleged hush-payments that were supposedly used to violate federal election laws. While some legal experts have insisted such concealment is clearly a criminal matter that must be charged, they were conspicuously silent when Hillary Clinton faced a not-dissimilar campaign-finance allegation.”

Last year, the Federal Election Commission fined the Clinton campaign for funding the Steele dossier as a legal expense. The campaign had previously denied funding the dossier, which was used to push false Russia collusion claims against Trump in 2016, and it buried the funding in the campaign’s legal budget. Yet, there was no hue and cry for this type of prosecution in Washington or New York.”

A Section 175 charge would normally be a misdemeanor. The only way to convert it into a Class E felony requires a showing that the “intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.” That other crime would appear to be the federal election violations which the Justice Department previously declined to charge.”

The linkage to a federal offense is critical for another reason: Bragg’s office ran out of time to prosecute this as a misdemeanor years ago; the statute of limitations is two years. Even if he shows this is a viable felony charge, the longer five-year limitation could be hard to establish.”

While the most rabid of leftists is still praying to a God they don’t believe in for a perp walk, a liberal like Bill Maher – who has zero love for Donald Trump – is telling the left that they are barking up the wrong tree, and it will cost them if they get their most fervent wish. Maher had no problem mocking Trump during his monologue, but he was much more cautious during the discussion with the panel of guests.

“Real Time” host Bill Maher kicked off his panel discussion Friday night by arguing against bringing criminal charges against former President Donald Trump, specifically for the alleged crimes from the Manhattan probe.”

“I really don’t want to give Donald Trump the satisfaction of talking about him,” Maher chuckled as he began the conversation. “I thought when he was gone, he’d be gone a little bit. But, you know, there is an ex-president out there now who’s going to be arrested — possibly. And he is talking about violence in the streets of his supporters if he does.”

He continued: “I just would like to go on record in saying I think this is a colossal mistake if they bring these charges. Not just one, you know. I mean, yes, he’s done a lot of bad things, and I’m sure he did this — everything they accused him of [doing], he did. But first of all, it’s not gonna work. It’s gonna be rocket fuel for his 2024 campaign. And it’s just gonna look to MAGA nation like, ‘Oh, you know, you tried with Mueller, you tried with Ukraine, you tried with January 6. Now we go to the porn star? Really? You’re down to that?!”

Maher is correct that an arrest would absolutely energize the base – which is why liberals want it. They are desperate for Trump to be the nominee. They believe that if Trump is the nominee, then Biden can beat him. That is a bet that no sane person should make, because there are simply too many variables involved, not the least of which being that Biden might not make it up or down his next flight of stairs.

If the left seriously did not want Trump, then they would be ignoring him. But they can’t. He is pure unfiltered oxygen to the media, who love every second of hating him loudly and watching their ratings go up. This is why they loathe Ron DeSantis – he refuses to play the media game and won’t even talk to them. Trump, on the other hand, loves a camera, and loves dishing it out to that camera. And the media then howl while they get all the eyeballs and the clicks.

Alvin Bragg has officially painted himself into a corner. Arrest Trump, and it fuels his campaign like nothing else could, and the case ends up dead in the water because Michael Cohen is possibly the worst person to build a case on. If Trump is acquitted, he gains a coat of teflon – maybe not in other courts, but definitely in the court of public opinion. But if Bragg doesn’t do something, then his job is toast and then he becomes a political target for the left. Bragg overpromised, and now, in one way or another, it looks like he is about to underdeliver. The warning are now coming from inside the house from people like Bill Maher, but neither left nor right can help themselves. The left is determined to get their arrest, if not their perp walk, and the right will react accordingly. And as far as I can tell, the person who benefits most from Donald Trump being arrested… is Donald Trump himself.

Featured image: composite image of Donald Trump (official White House portrait by Shealah Craighead, cropped, public domain) and Bill Maher (via Angela George on Wikimedia Commons, cropped, Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0))