by WorldTribune Staff, May 28, 2024 Contract With Our Readers
In a May 24 editorial the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board summed up the New York hush money trial of Donald Trump:
“Closing arguments are expected next week, and the wording of the jury instructions could matter a great deal. Judge (Juan) Merchan said Tuesday he was reserving decision on a request by the defense to tell jurors Trump must have acted “willfully” to be found guilty. Either way, the reality is that hush money isn’t illegal, disguising the bookkeeping is a misdemeanor that’s past its statute of limitations, and Bragg jury-rigged the felonies using an alleged second crime that doesn’t look like a crime.
“Conviction or no by a Manhattan jury, this is a case that should never have been brought.”
Legal experts agree with that conclusion, with many saying that Merchan should never have allowed the trial to proceed.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg brought the case which regards business records fraud — a state misdemeanor Bragg elevated to a felony for covering up an unidentified federal campaign finance violation or some other crime.
The feds, not a local prosecutor, should prosecute a campaign finance crime if such a charge was warranted, said University of California, Berkeley, professor John Yoo, a former Department of Justice official.
“The most important decision that Judge Merchan made was his failure to reject the DA’s backdoor effort to enforce federal election law, which is unconstitutional,” Yoo said. “If Merchan had reached the proper conclusion, he would have dismissed the entire indictment and the case would never have gone to trial.”
Joseph Moreno, a former federal prosecutor, agreed: “Every significant legal and evidentiary ruling that Judge Merchan made in this case was to the advantage of the prosecution, starting with the very premise of the case,” he said, adding that Bragg’s “bare-bones indictment” listed 34 felony charges but did not specify what crime Trump was allegedly concealing. Bragg only offered a “vague theory” that Trump’s accounting entries were done to hide federal and state crimes.
“But without any specifics as to how these laws were supposedly violated (or intended to be violated), this case should have failed as deficient under the Fifth Amendment’s due process right of an accused to be adequately informed so that a defense may be prepared,” Moreno told The Washington Times.
Trump added context and his side of the case:
Can you imagine, a President of the United States, who got more votes than any sitting President in the history of our Country, and who is also the Republican Nominee for President in the upcoming 2024 Election, and leading in all polls against the Democrat Nominee, Joe Biden, is tomorrow going before a Corrupt and Conflicted Democrat Appointed, Acting New York Judge, on a FAKE & MADE UP CASE by a Soros backed failed D.A., and the Judge himself, to see whether or not he will become a common criminal? According to virtually all Legal Scholars and Experts, THERE IS NO CRIME OR CASE against President Trump, and if there was it should have been brought seven years ago, not in the middle of his Campaign for President. Prosecutorial Misconduct. Election Interference!
WHY IS THE CORRUPT GOVERNMENT ALLOWED TO MAKE THE FINAL ARGUMENT IN THE CASE AGAINST ME? WHY CAN’T THE DEFENSE GO LAST? BIG ADVANTAGE, VERY UNFAIR. WITCH HUNT! DJT
Could somebody please ask Judge Merchan, whatever happened to MARK POMERANTZ, the man Alvin Bragg was furious at for the things he did on this contrived and unconstitutional case, and why wasn’t he allowed to testify? Also, why did Judge Merchan not allow Brad Smith, the leading Election Law Expert in the Country, to testify. He would have ended the case quickly by explaining the Law and stating that President Trump did nothing wrong. Likewise Bob Costello, and all of his direct and irrefutable knowledge, why was he so horribly treated and completely shut down by the Conflicted Judge, and why were his Emails and Text Messages not allowed to be shown…And then, of course, there’s the BIGGEST EVENT OF THEM ALL, but I’m not allowed to talk about it because I’m under an illegal and unconstitutional GAG ORDER. This is the Biden White House at work. ELECTION INTERFERENCE!
The list of pro-prosecution decisions that legal experts said Judge Merchan made included:
• Allowing Stormy Daniels to testify without boundaries. The judge allowed her to detail graphically her alleged sexual encounter with Trump. The judge later denied a defense motion for a mistrial over the testimony, saying the defense should have objected during the witness’s testimony.
• Judge Merchan imposed strict limits on the testimony of a former federal elections commissioner in defense of Trump, prompting the former president’s legal team not to call the witness. The defense wanted expert testimony about whether a nondisclosure agreement would constitute a campaign finance violation.
• The judge’s gag order prohibiting Trump from commenting about witnesses was another pro-prosecution move. It allowed his former lawyer and key state witness Michael Cohen, his former lawyer, and Daniels to repeatedly bash him during the proceedings without a response from Trump.
Bragg’s argument that Trump’s payment to Daniels was in effect an illegal donation to Trump’s campaign “is dubious, though put a pin in that for a moment. Did it cross Mr. Trump’s mind that the transaction might be criminal? A nondisclosure agreement on its own is perfectly legal.
The DA’s team argued the jury should see an interview Trump gave Larry King in 1999. “Nobody knows more about campaign finance than I do,” Trump told King. The prosecutor: “We think that defendant’s admission that he has extensive knowledge of campaign finance laws is obviously directly relevant.”
“Seriously? A transparent boast on TV in 1999 is proof Trump intended to facilitate an illegal campaign donation in 2016? Judge Juan Merchan sided with the defense on this, excluding it as ‘attenuated’ and ‘speculation,’ ” the Wall Street Journal wrote.
Then there’s the legal question of whether paying hush money even counts as a campaign expense.
Brad Smith, formerly of the Federal Election Commission, argues that it does not. A political candidate might choose, for example, to settle a meritless lawsuit against his business rather than face questions on it from voters. But that motivation wouldn’t convert the settlement into campaign activity.
Smith was ready to take the stand this week, but the defense decided not to call him, given limits that Judge Merchan placed on his testimony. “It’s elementary that the judge instructs the jury on the law, so I understand his reluctance,” Smith wrote.
The Journal concluded that, if Trump is convicted, “the odds seem reasonable that an appellate court might say paying off Stormy wasn’t illegal in the first place.”
Legal experts, Wall Street Journal: How Judge Merchan tipped the scales of justice against Trump added by Editor Two on
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