President Donald Trump has assembled a lengthy roster of perceived political enemies against whom he has sought to direct the Justice Department. Yet, as CNN host Michael Smerconish argued during his Saturday broadcast, there may be a significant reason why Trump has not pursued the one figure who actually secured a felony conviction against him — Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

During the Saturday morning segment, Smerconish discussed former NIAID Director Anthony Fauci's recent congressional testimony, in which Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times while being questioned by Republican lawmakers about COVID-19 conspiracy theories. While Smerconish suggested that Fauci's decision to plead the Fifth may have been a strategic misstep, he acknowledged that he could understand the rationale — specifically, Fauci's desire to "wrap himself in the pardon given to him on the last day of President [Joe] Biden's administration, which protects everything up through January of 2025" — given what Smerconish characterized as Trump's pattern of pursuing legal action against perceived adversaries.

Smerconish argued that Fauci "was hesitant to testify in a climate of legal weaponization" fostered by Trump, then enumerated a list of individuals already targeted by the Department of Justice under Trump: James Comey, Letitia James, Adam Schiff, John Bolton, John Brennan, Lisa Cook, Jerome Powell, Mark Kelly, Eric Swalwell, Fani Willis, and Jack Smith.

Conspicuously absent from that roster, Smerconish noted, is Alvin Bragg, the current District Attorney for New York County. Bragg stands out as the only one of Trump's many legal adversaries who successfully obtained a felony conviction against him. In 2024, Trump was found guilty on 34 counts related to his hush money case, in which he directed payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about an alleged affair ahead of the 2016 election and falsified business records to conceal those payments. The Manhattan case was the only one of four criminal indictments Trump faced — the others being federal charges over classified documents, federal election interference charges, and a Georgia state RICO case — that reached a verdict before the November 2024 election. The remaining three were either dismissed, delayed, or paused amid procedural battles and a Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.

Given that achievement, Smerconish found it noteworthy that Trump has taken no apparent retaliatory action against Bragg. Bragg's office operates under New York state law, placing it outside the direct reach of federal Justice Department authority — a structural barrier that distinguishes it from the federal prosecutors and officials on Smerconish's list. During his Saturday segment, the host offered his own theory as to why: Bragg's prosecution ultimately aided Trump's reelection.

"Curious that among all of Trump's legal nemeses, only Alvin Bragg has thus far escaped scrutiny like the others," Smerconish said. "And he's the one who convicted Trump. I have a theory about that. That case actually did more to elect Donald Trump than any of the others that he faced. And maybe Trump agrees with me."

Later in the segment, Smerconish expanded on the point: "Now, you've heard me say before, I don't think Donald Trump should have been indicted four times. Those indictments they played to his benefit, especially that which resulted in a conviction due to the hush money payments. That's the case pursued by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg. During the campaign, Trump told a CPAC conference, I am your retribution. I don't know if he delivered for that audience, but he's surely been his own avenger." Smerconish, a former Republican strategist who reregistered as an independent, has been a consistent media voice arguing that the cascading indictments galvanized Trump's base and boosted his fundraising throughout the 2024 campaign cycle.