Cracks Are Already Showing in the Trump Case
“The judge donated money — a tiny amount, $35, but in plain violation of a rule prohibiting New York judges from making political donations of any kind — to a pro-Biden, anti-Trump political operation”
There has been a lot of buzz about this Ellie Honig piece in NY Mag. It makes a number of admissions that the left won’t like:
By any reasonable measure, the jury of Manhattanites who yesterday found former president Donald Trump guilty on all 34 charges did its job, and did it well.
They took on a civic duty from which many others fled; during jury selection, when Judge Juan Merchan allowed potential jurors who did not want to serve essentially to walk out the door, over half the assembled pool headed straight for the exits. The jurors sat through six weeks of testimony, they were by all accounts attentive throughout the trial, and they asked precise, insightful questions of the judge during deliberations. Nobody’s truly in position to say if the jury got it right or wrong; they saw the evidence and we didn’t — most of us, that is, including those like me who followed every line of testimony as it happened; there’s no substitute for seeing it play out live. Reasonable minds could have come out either way, and this jury found that the prosecution carried its burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The jury’s work, and their verdict, deserve respect.
But that doesn’t mean that every structural infirmity around the Manhattan district attorney’s case has evaporated. Both of these things can be true at once: The jury did its job, and this case was an ill-conceived, unjustified mess. Sure, victory is the great deodorant, but a guilty verdict doesn’t make it all pure and right. Plenty of prosecutors have won plenty of convictions in cases that shouldn’t have been brought in the first place. “But they won” is no defense to a strained, convoluted reach unless the goal is to “win,” now, by any means necessary and worry about the credibility of the case and the fallout later.
The following are all undeniable facts.
The judge donated money — a tiny amount, $35, but in plain violation of a rule prohibiting New York judges from making political donations of any kind — to a pro-Biden, anti-Trump political operation, including funds that the judge earmarked for “resisting the Republican Party and Donald Trump’s radical right-wing legacy.” Would folks have been just fine with the judge staying on the case if he had donated a couple bucks to “Re-elect Donald Trump, MAGA forever!”? Absolutely not.
CNN Senior Legal Analyst Describes How The Trump Conviction Was A Political Hit Job
1. "The judge donated money… in plain violation of a rule prohibiting New York judges from making political donations—to a pro-Biden, anti-Trump political operation."
2. Alvin Bragg boasted on… pic.twitter.com/28BAFhnVig
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) May 31, 2024
The political witch hunt never ends
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Good question. I imagine he'll be reprimanded and fall back in line. pic.twitter.com/D1WR9lFCp7
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) May 31, 2024
Destroying America
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Comments
That is completely ridiculous.
Just by the measure of time, the jury got charging instructions that took over an hour and a half for the judge to read to them … which they then needed repeated in large part …. and came to their insane and unreasonable conclusion in less than 12 hours – about only 6 times the amount of time they spent listening to the judge read the actual instructions to them. Honestly, that’s even worse than the OJ jury, even though they only took 3 or 4 hours of “deliberation” to reach their pre-selected verdict.
And this is just an analysis of the time involved … forget all the insane logical problems and “legal” f*ckery of this show trial.
Not to mention the ridiculous stacking of charges.
34 charges deliberated over just 12 hours. So not even 20 minutes per charge.
And, this whole farce was premised on an incorrect and unlawful state application of the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA). Federal, not state authorities, have exclusive jurisdiction over FECA, and the fat slob Bragg and the corrupt conflicted judge misapplied the law anyway. There was no illegal campaign contribution. Anything involved in this matter was a personal, not campaign expense. It would have been illegal to claim the NDA payment was a campaign expense. And even so, it could not have possibly have influenced the election when, given the timing, it would have been reported, per federal regulations, on forms submitted post-election. The S.Ct. needs to step in and stop states from usurping federal prerogatives under FECA.
Right, New York magazine’s praise for the jurors is undeserved and absurd. They are the furthest thing from heroic. They are narcissistic, gullible, hyper-partisan, card-carrying Dhimmi-crat zealots and fanatics who knew what their role was in this Soviet-style, show trial charade and played it well, without a scintilla of consideration given to law, facts, fairness, honesty, objectivity or apolitical considerations.
How about a reward for any information that leads to evidence of corruption of the jury? For example, were they hand picked ahead of time?
They could not have been more handpicked than if they had come out of some studio’s casting office after six auditions.
Actually, the jury did their job in an extraordinary fashion. They managed to hide their bias to get onto the jury and returned a guilty verdict in short order which was what they wanted to happen. Great job on their part.
The jury probably just wanted to get it over with and this was the quickest and easiest way of doing so. The verdict came out just before they were going to be sent home for the night, ask yourself why? Six weeks of disruption of your normal routine can wear on you even of you don’t want to admit it, , when I was on a jury, even a week, you are under complete control of the court, told where you can go, what you can do, getting shuffled in an out of jury box while lawyers and judges argue about something.
How does the Chief Judge or someone with the responsibility of over seeing judges not know about a donation and disqualify him the instant it becomes public knowledge.. How is a judge that has close family with financial interests be allowed to preside of the case.
I have little faith that the first level of appeals judges will overturn this farce of legal action, that panel is made up of the same types that ran this trial, I also have little faith in anything being resolved prior to election day
“I have little faith that the first level of appeals judges will overturn this farce of legal action, that panel is made up of the same types that ran this trial, I also have little faith in anything being resolved prior to election day”
To be honest we are at the point where faith in any part of the court system being honest and unbiased is likely to be misplaced.
Subotai Bahadur
“Honestly, that’s even worse than the OJ jury, even though they only took 3 or 4 hours of “deliberation” to reach their pre-selected verdict.”
I followed the OJ trial very closely at the time, because reasons. The result of that trial, which I assess as incorrect, was not the jury’s fault. The prosecution didn’t make their case in the courtroom. The prosecution was just sloppy and incomplete — like they were used to dealing with people who couldn’t put on a defense.
The real problem was the jury instructions, not the jury. And all the charges were the same, so it was a true all or nothing case.
“Nobody’s truly in position to say if the jury got it right or wrong; they saw the evidence and we didn’t “
Uh yes we did. Although there were no cameras allowed in the court room (which is ridiculous for a case of this magnitude) it was widely covered and there were people transcribing the entire case to put it out to the public. NY Mag is written by morons.
Absolutely ridiculous
That’s the latest liberal BS to try and justify this. ‘Oh well they saw the evidence and we didn’t, so you aren’t allowed to criticize them’.
Time for hardball.
The public was probably better informed than the jury, the public got to see the evidence that was purposely excluded by the judge, primarily the testimony of a true expert who happened to be in charge of the FEC at one point.
Evidence that didn’t get into the courtroom, similar to the OJ trial. Different in that it was prosecution incompetence that left stuff out in the OJ trial, while it was Judge’s shenanigans in the Hush the Bad Orange Man up trial.
So where were all these experts before Trump was railroaded?
Where were all the Republican “leaders” who are suddenly expressing outrage?
Those insider stock tips don’t make you money unless you act on them. Can’t take the time away to support Trump when you’re busy making millions upon millions.
I imagine those two lawyers on the jury had a huge influence in how that jury decided the case.
Jury fixing
Not to mention the one that admitted he listened to Michael Cohen’s podcasts.
That alone should have been an immediate mistrial.
Were they plants?
I could have sworn that, at least in some jurisdictions, they don’t let lawyers on juries for precisely that reason. I’m surprised they didn’t get punted for cause (or perhaps that was attempted and Marchan denied it). I got dropped from a jury for being an engineer and as such might have knowledge independent of what I’m being fed by the lawyers.
I was dismissed from as a juror in a slip and fall case inside a retail store because in a previous job part of my job was investigating workplace injuries, reporting on them and developing best practices to prevent them in the future.
I love the smell of mounting desparation. It has the unmistakeable aroma of nuts and bananas to begin with, but I am afraid it will soon reek of gunpowder.
“It has the unmistakeable aroma of nuts and bananas to begin with”
Now there’s Lume deodorant for that.
It’s like AI. You get out what you put in. The jury never had a chance.
The damage caused to America by the Obama transformation is untold. In the short term, probably best to fight fire with fire.
Although it may be the case that they finally did something to awaken people to their mendacity, and they will continue to self-destruct.
They may be making Trump, a true American, into a figure for Mount Rushmore in the annals of history.
They certainly did. They had thousands of chances. That jury is as guilty and as responsible as Bragg and the judge and the rest of the America-hating conspirators who set this show trial up.
They really didn’t. They were instructed to do just what they did, after they were conditioned throughout to do so.
Yuval? Is that you, Yuval?
No idea what you are getting at. However, there are many legal commentators that also believe the jury is least to blame, if at all, based on the overal co ntext of what took place.
Yuval Harari: I’d say the most important fact anybody who is alive today needs to know about the 21 century is that we are becoming hackable animals…
Why did Bragg only charge Trump with 34 counts (for one made-up “crime”)? Why didn’t he charge Trump for every stroke of the pen on each check and every printed character on every invoice and check and accounting ledger? If you’re going to go 34-jeopardy on a fake charge you might as well go whole hog on it – and Bragg is certainly the sort of guy to be a whole hog. He could have charged Trump with 24,762 separate felony counts and made Trump liable for up to 145,321 years in prison!
Honig went off the reservation but the jury did not
DJT has same chance of winning appeal as Chauvin did in Minny – zero.
Also thinking that Bragg might bring in Katyal to handle the appeal same way Keith X did with Chauvin. With cases being so similar NYC should get deep discount.
From an appellate point of view, there is little similarity between the cases. The exception would arguably be the Merchan’s refusal to grant a change of venue (as it was denied w/Chauvin), which was then upheld in a pre-trial appeal. Chauvin’s case – while a huge injustice – wasn’t riddled with a volume of reversible errors like Trump’s is. There aren’t many honest legal observers who don’t believe Trump’s case is very likely to be upended on appeal. Not many people (who do appellate work) thought Chauvin had much of a chance.
I have minimal faith in the first level appeals court in NYC, now if the appeal is held in Buffalo or Syracuse he may get a more diverse set of judges on the panel. Maybe they will prove me wrong, I’ll take a large helping of crow if it turns out that this level of judges actually levels the playing field.
Yeah, I don’t disagree. The NY appellate court system naming convention is so peculiar (w/the Supreme Court being the lowest trial court, for instance), I’m nut sure what that Manhattan appellate court is even called. But, when they heard the Weinstein appeal, they rejected it unanimously, something like 5-0. Then, when the case was finally heard by the Appellate Court of NY (the highest appellate court), I believe the lower court verdict was set aside either unanimously or almost unanimously. That underscores how much of a chasm there is between the rabid leftists in and around the Manhattan judicial scene and the rest of the state, particularly Buffalo. Still, I have some level of confidence this case won’t even have to go to SCOTUS for Trump to get substantive relief.
Megyn Kelly had a show late last week w/Mark Geragos and Alan Dershowitz (who consulted on the Weinstein appeal), and even though neither are ‘Maga’ supporters, they’re both confident that Trump will get relief in the NY appeal system…eventually. Geragos called the incompetence of Merchan ‘mind-boggling.’
Trial and first level appellate judges in NY are also elected. The NY Court of Appeals is appointed by the Governor.
While I tend to agree that the biased leftists in NY aren’t going to let him win on appeal, this isn’t the same thing.
Maybe Chauvin had a chance on appeal, but that chance went to ZERO the second he pleaded guilty to the federal charges. That sealed any chance he had. Once he pleaded guilty nobody was going to grant his appeal.
I bet he was blackmailed into pleading.
They like doing that.
If I remember correctly, the federal plea put him in a different prison, one where he was not guaranteed to be shanked to death within the first week.
The jury is the safeguard against the deep state, not its enforcer.
With instructions that allow four jurors of the 12 call guilty one one charge. 4 on another and 4 on another added together to have 12 jurors summed to give a guilty call. Backstop of the Deep State.
Absolutely true.
But only one juror in 2,000 understands that anymore.
Read today a article that said the Judge when picking the jury actually told people they could walk away no questions asked. And basically got volunteers that wanted to be other jury.
Sounds like the pool was totally rigged
Of course it was rigged. And you forgot to mention that the trial took place in a county that was almost exclusively composed of democrats and therefore the chances of getting Republicans on the jury that were supportive of Trump was basically nonexistent.
That statement pretty much guarantee he got an all-activist jury. That sealed Trump’s fate, as activist juries don’t care what is presented at trial. The prosecution could have rested before presenting any evidence at all and they still would have voted to convict. That likely would have been a bit too on point even for the similarly corrupt NY Court of Appeals, so the farce had to be played out to give said court a pretext on which to hang their unquestionably inevitable denial of Trump’s appeal
Hmm
Dear God I hate these people
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/06/alvin-braggs-office-accused-leaking-trumps-potential-sentence/
They really really want him to spend some time at Rykers so they can ensure him the Epstein treatment. That’s the true goal.
Probably arranged by Hillary.
That would be a very bad idea,,,,,,, it would cause an open season for hunting politicians. I think the gloves would come off and we would see the events of John Ross’s book Unintended Consequences happen in real time.
You can count on it.
Carl Drega, Tom Alciere, Dave Burgert, and Garry Watson were outliers 25 years ago… but even back then, they were harbingers. Soon, I predict they will become as patron saints.
It’s time for Americans to do to Joe Biden and his corrupt party cronies what Romanians did to Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu.
not only politicians, but every tv talking head that charged Russia collusion, insurrection, etc
and maybe a few corrupt judges and prosecutors, just for fun
Legally and constitutionally it was an abomination from the very beginning. The Law and Constitution has no part in what has happened. We are now in the realm of power politics. I note Karl Von Clausewitz’s comments.
Subotai Bahadur
Seems to me similar to current events between the river and the sea in this way: people, not having seen the thing in some time, have forgotten what the thing is like.
Power politics is ugly, uncomfortable and unproductive, even for the people “on top” in the long term. We have rule of law so we can do more useful stuff together than without. Even the grift runs dry when everything is about who can best bash who with a rock.
Similarly, so much reaction about the death and destruction in Gaza is non sequitur. It’s a war. This is what happens in wars. That’s why we don’t like them.
“The jury’s work, and their verdict, deserve respect.”
BS! No evidence of any intent or crime by Trump was presented by the prosecution. The jury was given no reason for a guilty verdict
Imagine writing “(r)easonable minds could have come out either way,” and also contending that a “guilty” verdict was just.
If reasonable minds can find for “not guilty” clearly there is reasonable doubt and no “guilty” verdict is justified, as that can only be the outcome if there is “no reasonable doubt.”
“The judge donated money — a tiny amount, $35, but in plain violation of a rule prohibiting New York judges from making political donations of any kind”
Oh, haven’t you heard? There’s a new statute of limitations on that rule. It expired… yesterday, yeah, that’s the ticket.
I wonder if anyone will say it out loud that the justice system in the USA is based on a whore and a thief?
Which ones?
We have crossed a line that will haunt our country for years. The first thing Trumps lawyers should be talking about is why the hildabeast hasn’t been charged with election interference? She directed and participated in the greatest election interference ever. Enterprising Republican AG’s should go after Xiden for failure to uphold federal laws. Also for murder due to the loss of 13 lives in Afghanistan. Same for Myorkas and Garland. There is no going back. If we can see it, then the Supremes can see it too. Trumps lawyers should file directly with the Supreme Court citing Bush v Gore. Hell, the Supremes just voted 9-0 for the NRA! Think about that. FJB
And, there is crack showing in the Hunter case.
Thought about that today. Would have been a great chance for the Crusading RINOs to pick a judge of their own. And yet, they were powerless — or feckless — to do so.
I would like to know how many of those jurors went into the trial already having hired an agent surreptitiously. And even more curious to know how many of them already have deals with Netflix, Max, Hulu or Amazon Prime?
Every single one of them knew what would happen to them if they voted not guilty. The Left has a diligent group of inquisitional tyrants ready to spring into action at the slightest urging. “Who will rid me of this turbulent priest” is a terrifying precedent.
“Cracks are already showing…”
Oh, honey, where you been? They were showing before he was ever charged in this one. Maybe you should have written your article 2 months ago when people on your side of the street could have stopped this abomination of a trial.
“The judge donated money — a tiny amount, $35, but in plain violation of a rule prohibiting New York judges from making political donations of any kind — to a pro-Biden, anti-Trump political operation”
We need to ask Alvin Bragg how to prosecute that as a felony.
That’s (D)ifferent.