- Donald Trump became the first former president to be indicted on Thursday.
- A former prosecutor for the Manhattan district attorney’s office said the office better win its case against Trump.
- He told Insider the “credibility and reputation” of the entire office was at stake.
A former prosecutor for the Manhattan district attorney’s office said they “damn well better win” their case against former President Donald Trump following his historic indictment on Thursday.
Mark Bederow, a high-profile criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor for the Manhattan district attorney, told Insider the whole office’s reputation depends on it.
“As an alumnus of that office, I hope for their sake that they have the goods, because the credibility and reputation of the institution of the Manhattan DA’s Office is at stake when you indict the former President and current presidential candidate in connection with paying off a stripper threatening to expose a sexual dalliance,” Bederow said.
Trump was indicted by a grand jury after an investigation into a payment made to adult film actor Stormy Daniels in the final weeks of his 2016 campaign. A $130,000 payment was sent to Daniels by Trump’s then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, who has said Trump directed it. Trump has denied directing the payment or having an affair with Daniels.
Trump, who is running for president in the 2024 election, quickly denounced the indictment in a statement on Thursday, saying calling it “Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history.”
Bederow said that if the district attorney does not win in court, the indictment will be viewed as “nothing more than a political hit” and that the office’s credibility would be “severely damaged.”
“It is an office that is famous for ignoring politics in pursuing justice. All of that will be lost if this crashes and burns,” he said.
Bederow added that the Manhattan district attorney has “immersed itself in a presidential election” by bringing charges against a former president, something that has never happened in US history.
“Their key witness is a pervasive liar and obsessed with public attention,” he said of Cohen. “They damn well better win.”
It’s unclear what crime Trump has been charged with, but experts and defense lawyers previously predicted he would likely be charged with falsifying business records in the first degree.
Bederow previously told Insider that a case against Trump based solely on the hush-money payments was “likely to fail.”
