Former President Donald Trump has long said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's decision to prosecute him over an alleged hush-money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels was politically motivated.

However, the former president scored an unexpected victory this week after an unexpected source presented information which bolsters his claim. 

Bragg failed to specifying underlying crime in indictment

As Daily Caller contributor Katelynn Richardson pointed out, The New York Times acknowledged in a piece published on Tuesday that a number of legal experts regard the case Bragg has brought against Trump as "shaky."

It noted that Trump has been charged with falsifying business records, with Bragg arguing that payments made by the Trump Organization to Daniels were mislabeled as "legal expenses."

The paper pointed out how falsifying business records is a misdemeanor under state law unless such falsification was done in furtherance of another crime.

Yet "Bragg failed to specify the underlying crime that Trump intended to commit" when he initially brought the indictment, meaning that "the Trump case stands apart."

Record suggests Trump is being singled out

While the district attorney insisted that "he wasn't required to specify" what other crime Trump falsified records in furtherance of, he speculated at a press conference that it could be "a violation of state or federal election law."

NYT: 'So the hush-money case it is. Some legal experts initially deemed it shaky, largely because Bragg failed to specify the underlying crime that Trump intended to commit. Though the crime of falsifying business records is nominally a misdemeanor, the Manhattan district…

— Byron York (@ByronYork) April 9, 2024

"The Times could identify only two other felony cases in Manhattan over the past decade in which defendants were indicted on charges of falsifying business records but no other crime," the paper added.

It further observed how this fact has become even more suspicious in the eyes of critics given that Bragg "hitched his aspirations to the pursuit of Donald J. Trump."

Candidate Bragg boasted of having previously sued Trump

This included his having "used Trump to contrast himself" with former Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. when running for office in 2021.

Specifically, Bragg accused Vance of having "appeared soft on the rich and powerful," with his failure to indict Trump being a prime example.

"It is a fact that I have sued Trump over 100 times," Bragg was quoted as boasting during an April of 2021 interview with the Times. "I can't change that fact, nor would I. That was important work."

Bragg made a similar assertion later that year in a post on the social media platform then-known as Twitter, writing, "I didn’t just sue Donald Trump and the Trump Foundation — I won."