Even before the unprecedented indictment of former President Trump, Manhattan Dist. thoughtful

.

Alvin Bragg was widely suspected of relying on a dubious legal theory. Many observers said the idea that a grand jury in New York could indict Trump for covering up a federal crime was untested. They were wrong.

In the days before the indictment, some legal analysts warned that New York had no authority to charge Trump with trying to cover up federal crimes, such as illegally funding and influencing the presidential election. Bragg was criticized across the political spectrum for trying a new legal theory in a landmark indictment. Even those who hoped Trump would be held accountable were concerned that the questions surrounding the case could exacerbate national polarization.

When the indictment was unsealed, a sigh of relief greeted the revelation that Trump could also be charged with concealment of state tax crimes, which are well within Bragg’s jurisdiction. But the fact is, Bragg has a solid legal footing in accusing the former president of covering up the federal government

crimes

, at. There is nothing remotely new about charging a defendant in one jurisdiction with a crime in another jurisdiction.

Take the 1894 case in which two men, William Hall and John Dockery, fired shots from North Carolina across the border into Tennessee, where the bullets hit and killed someone. They were convicted of murder in North Carolina, but the conviction was overturned on the grounds that the murder took place in Tennessee, where they should

to have

are

in

brought to court.

But what if Hall and Dockery had missed? In that case, the court made clear, North Carolina would have been entitled to prosecute them for attempted murder. The attempted crime may take place in a jurisdiction other than the one that would properly prosecute if the attempt were successful.

Or take a much more recent case in New York. In 2009, Theophilis Burroughs took a deposit from New York undercover agents and agreed to meet them in South Carolina, where he would sell them illegal guns. Had the plan been completed, Burroughs would have violated South Carolina’s gun laws, not New York’s. On these grounds, Burroughs argued that New York had no right to prosecute him for the attempted illegal sale.

But a court rejected his argument. If you try to break the laws of South Carolina in New York, the reasoning went, you are committing a crime in New York: the crime of attempt.

Trump is not impeached either

successfully

influencing a federal election. It would have to be shown that the election wouldn’t have turned out the way it did if he hadn’t paid hush money to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, which would be a tall order. Trump may well have won in 2016, even if Daniels and McDougal had told their pre-election stories. If success had to turn the election its way, there would be at least reasonable doubt about such a charge.

Trump is really being accused of one

attempt

to illegally influence the elections. To prove Trump guilty of the crimes he is accused of, Bragg must show that he was trying to cover up something illegal by falsifying business records. And the crime Trump was trying to commit in that way doesn’t have to be a crime in New York. That is, it is as if he fired a shot across the border and, as far as anyone can tell, missed.

This is not to say that we know how the case will turn out. People who have the money to hire first class lawyers are regularly acquitted of fairly common charges. And judges are sometimes moved by fallacious arguments that ordinary charges are extraordinary.

But there is nothing extraordinary, much less news, about being charged with attempted crime in the jurisdiction where you made the attempt, even if the successful crime would have happened elsewhere.

Gideon Yaffe is a professor of criminal justice and a member of the Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law School. He is the author of Attempts: In the Philosophy of Action and the Criminal Law.