Dem Strategist: Of Course Bragg, James Used Lawfare to Bury Trump

This may well be Scott Jennings’ favorite moment in his CNN career — and he’s had lots of wins while battling 4:1 with its panelists. It’s not clear when this moment took place, but it came more as a capitulation from Democrat strategist and Pete Buttigieg advisor Lis Smith, who openly questioned why her party kept trying the La Résistance 2.0 strategy that clearly failed, and failed spectacularly, between 2023 and now. 

Smith wants to argue — rightly — that Democrats have no coherent strategy, and that the “resistance” has been a bust. Jennings, however, wants to make sure to accurately and fully explore Smith’s admission before moving onto other issues:

Democrat strategist Lis Smith, a top party insider and longtime advisor to Pete Buttigieg, just admitted what many suspected have been stating from the beginning.

Lis Smith, “We resisted so hard between 2017 and 2024. We impeached the guy, we prosecuted him, convicted him of 34… pic.twitter.com/WdueWPHnLd

— C-Reason🇺🇸 (@CreasonJana) October 16, 2025

Lis Smith, “We resisted so hard between 2017 and 2024. We impeached the guy, we prosecuted him, convicted him of 34 felony counts and guess what? He still got elected. So I don’t know how much harder we can resist right now.”

[Jennings asked], “Are you admitting that the case against Trump in New York was part of the organized Democratic Party resistance?”

Lis Smith: “It was a Democratic prosecutor, and at the time I said I thought it was unwise … I just think it was a boneheaded move by Alvin Bragg.”

This does not appear in CNN’s transcripts from the past two days of The Arena with Kasie Hunt, so it’s not clear precisely when this took place. Whenever this aired, it should be trapped in amber and linked generously over the next several months and years. Even Democrats recognize that the Letitia James and Alvin Bragg court cases were entirely bogus. It’s been a while since Democrats have used the “convicted felon” argument on Trump, but Jennings makes sure to put a spike through it:

JENNINGS: Just to be clear — just to be clear, everybody who now touts the 34 felonies, take it from Lis — this is not a real case. This is a plot to upend the presidential campaign, which backfired.

SMITH: I just think it was a boneheaded move by Alvin Bragg, but it’s not his first or last one. 

Ahem. This was not a “boneheaded move.” This was a deliberate choice to kneecap a potential presidential candidate, especially because Bragg had initially refused to pursue charges in the matter of ledger entries for payments on a non-disclosure agreement with Stormy Daniels. Only after Democrats put political pressure on Bragg did he bring those charges, amped up to felonies in a ridiculous attempt to get around the statute of limitations for the supposed misdemeanors that would normally have been charged. That’s not an error in judgment; it’s outright corruption.  

The same is true for Letitia James’ lawsuit against Trump, only more transparent for its corrupt nature. James literally campaigned for office by promising to take Trump out of politics, and pressed a fraud lawsuit in which no one lost any money, the alleged victims want to do more business with Trump, and nonetheless attempted to steal half a billion dollars from Trump. A court finally stopped that part of the case, while punting the rest to the state Court of Appeals, its highest appellate division. James and Judge Arthur Engoron were entirely corrupt in that process, and now James is living with the precedent she herself set in a new criminal indictment from the Department of Justice. 

In the end, it doesn’t matter when this admission by Smith took place. It’s timeless. 

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