JONATHAN TURLEY: Plan B From Outer Manhattan: Why the Court Should Move the Trump Trial Out of Manhattan.

Even if the judge ignores the glaring legal problems with this flawed indictment, he must decide where a trial should be held. The correct answer should be “Anywhere but Manhattan.” However, the judge is likely to deny that change of venue motion, and a denial would say a great deal about this case.

Bragg’s cavalier attitude only magnifies the view that Manhattan is the wrong place for this trial.

It is not simply that the district attorney ran on a pledge to indict this defendant. The problem is that he was elected on that pledge by the citizens of this district — the same citizens who would comprise the jury pool in Trump’s case.

When Bragg was elected, he reviewed the theories being advanced by an attorney brought into the office for the purpose of nailing Trump. Yet Bragg and some of his team reportedly balked at the efforts of fellow attorneys Mark F. Pomerantz and Carey R. Dunne; Bragg halted the case, and Pomerantz and Dunne resigned. Their resignation letter was mysteriously leaked to the media and became part of a public pressure campaign; Pomerantz then wrote a tell-all book that many legal observers considered to be an outrageous, unprofessional effort to push for Trump’s indictment.

Bragg faced an outcry from constituents who called on him to make good on this election promise.

So, now we have a case brought by a prosecutor who campaigned on bagging Trump, to be tried before a jury selected from a district that elected Bragg in part for that reason — a district that also voted against Trump, 84.5 percent to 14.5 percent, in the 2020 presidential election.

Read the whole thing.