After all, they didn't report those payments as campaign contributions.

That's the suggestion that has been raised in a congressional hearing.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's case against President Donald Trump over business reporting issues, described as a "hush money" case because of testimony from ex-porn star Stormy Daniels, likely will be overturned, witnesses have told Congress.

And given the multiple constitutional errors allowed by Judge Juan Merchan, whose daughter is a Democrat activist and was fundraising off her father's courtroom decisions during the trial, one member has defined what the entire exercise was about:

"This irony here is that this is going to be vacated and this trial was all about trying to influence an election using the process as the punishment," charged U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky.

His comments came in a hearing on Bragg's scheming against Trump held by the House Judiciary Committee.

Bragg charged Trump with 34 felonies based on a handful of alleged business reporting violations which were misdemeanors for which the statute of limitations had expired. Bragg, however, filed them as felonies claiming they were in support of some other, unidentified, crime.

They essentially involved payments to a Trump lawyer who then paid Daniels to keep quiet about an alleged affair, which both individuals have denied happened.

Witnesses including Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey and FEC Commissioner Trey Trainor both told Congress the conviction almost certainly will be overturned because of Merchan's apparently willful failures to follow the Constitution.

Massie took the entire case apart in a few minutes of comments during the hearing;