Harvard-trained lawyer Kristy Greenberg spent a decade in U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), where she worked for both Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg and Donald Trump‘s lawyer Todd Blanche.
Before joining Hogan Lovells in private practice, Greenberg was most recently the Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division at SDNY. Looking at the so-called “hush money” case against former President Trump that begins jury selection today, Greenberg says the case has “tremendous jury appeal.”
By that Greenberg means that Bragg’s case, unlike some of the more esoteric legal transgressions Trump stands accused of elsewhere — e.g. fake elector slates, etc. — presents a “captivating and easily comprehensible” narrative in which Trump’s deception “practically leaps off the pages.”
Greenberg emphasizes Hollywood script-worthy details including the aliases the parties allegedly used: Trump is David Dennison; his alleged one-time fling is Peggy Peterson, AKA Stormy Daniels, who herself is AKA Stephanie Clifford.
Intimate knowledge of both sides and plenty of time — as everyone has had — to become familiar with the case make Greenberg — who recently wrote a case assessment for MSNBC that includes some of the above quotations — one of the many legal commentators to follow as the unprecedented trial proceeds.
Want to understand jury selection strategy? Die Hard has the answer. Both sides are looking for John McClane: A fly in the ointment. A monkey in the wrench. A pain in the ass. Prosecutors want that guy off the jury. Defense wants him on it to hang the jury. pic.twitter.com/wulbVZ8Ntr
— Kristy Greenberg (@KGreenberg_) April 14, 2024
Greenberg’s take on the narrative Bragg will present also aligns with that of another famous Harvard attorney, the Law Professor Emeritus and Constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe.
Tribe writes about an overarching “theme” inherent in the narrative the prosecution will present in the “hush money” trial — a “through line of illegally manipulating elections by distorting the information” that, as Greenberg said, will be “captivating and comprehensible” to a jury. Tribe adds how easily the Bragg narrative relates to, indeed resembles, the other criminal charges that Trump faces — election subversion foremost among them.
“The criminal trial that begins April 15 has a theme almost nobody has yet fully appreciated,” Tribe writes. “It’s the through line of illegally manipulating elections by distorting the information on the basis of which those elections are decided.
1. The criminal trial that begins April 15 has a theme almost nobody has yet fully appreciated. It’s the through line of illegally manipulating elections by distorting the information on the basis of which those elections are decided.
2. Now, for instance, with his nonstop…
— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) April 14, 2024