excalibur
Diamond Member
- Mar 19, 2015
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This isn't America. This is the 1930s Soviet Union. It is a show-trial that Stalin would be proud of.
And like then, when millions applauded, we have you, and you know who you are, applauding this.
www.nationalreview.com
And like then, when millions applauded, we have you, and you know who you are, applauding this.
The former president is not charged with a conspiracy to steal the 2016 election — but the jury might think he is.
If former president Donald Trump seems even more cantankerous in his Manhattan courthouse press conferences than in those he has held at other Democratic lawfare venues, it is undoubtedly because of his unique insight into what is being done to him there. As a young mogul, Trump learned hardball litigation at the feet of Roy Cohn, a rogue master of the game. Cohn’s No. 1 rule was: “Don’t tell me what the law is. Tell me who the judge is.”
In the ongoing criminal trial, elected progressive Democratic DA Alvin Bragg doesn’t have much of a case. But he has the judge, and that is all he needs.
Judge Juan Merchan is orchestrating Trump’s conviction of a crime that is not actually charged in the indictment: conspiracy to violate FECA (the Federal Election Campaign Act — specifically, its spending limits). That should not be possible in the United States, where the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment mandates that an accused may only be tried for a felony offense if it has been outlined with specificity in an indictment, approved by a grand jury that has found probable cause for that offense.
...
Yet, Judge Merchan has swallowed whole Bragg’s theory that he can enforce FECA. The judge not only ruled pre-trial that Bragg could prove the uncharged federal crime; he has abetted Bragg’s prosecutors in their framing of the case for the jury as a “criminal conspiracy,” notwithstanding that no conspiracy is actually charged in the indictment — under either federal or state law. And although the trial has been under way for just a week, Merchan has already made key rulings patently designed to convince the jury that Trump’s complicity in a conspiracy to violate FECA has already been established.
...
Even though prosecutors are not supposed to use Cohen’s guilty pleas to argue that Trump is guilty of campaign crimes, that is exactly what they are doing — and Merchan is letting them do it. In the prosecution’s opening statement, for example, in the context of explaining to the jury that Cohen, Pecker, and Trump had committed a “conspiracy” of “election fraud. Pure and simple,” Colangelo elaborated:
This is breathtakingly mendacious. Colangelo was not properly admonishing the jury that Cohen is a witness of dubious credibility. He was signaling to them that the NDA payments to McDougal and Daniels — for which he had just blamed Trump in an extensive narrative — were crimes for which Cohen “went to jail.” In reality, Cohen was sentenced to prison because of his lucrative fraud crimes, not the FECA charges. The SDNY never charged Trump, and it almost certainly wouldn’t have charged Cohen if he hadn’t agreed to plead guilty.
...
If this weren’t so cynical it might be amusing. Merchan let prosecutors make this argument right after pre-trial instructions, in which he explained to the jury:
This is true. Pecker is not an expert in federal campaign law — he shouldn’t be allowed to testify about it. And what he may have been thinking — or, even more of a stretch, what AMI’s general counsel may have been thinking — about whether it would have been legal for AMI to take reimbursement from Cohen and Trump is irrelevant. It is not admissible evidence of Trump’s state of mind, let alone Trump’s guilt on the uncharged conspiracy allegation. Nonetheless, Merchan let prosecutors intimate to the jury that a knowledgeable lawyer had told Pecker it would be illegal for AMI to be compensated by Cohen and Trump for the money paid to McDougal. The judge has to know that’s improper.
In calling Pecker as their first witness, prosecutors had him testify that federal law is violated by expenditures made for the purpose of influencing an election.
...
If former president Donald Trump seems even more cantankerous in his Manhattan courthouse press conferences than in those he has held at other Democratic lawfare venues, it is undoubtedly because of his unique insight into what is being done to him there. As a young mogul, Trump learned hardball litigation at the feet of Roy Cohn, a rogue master of the game. Cohn’s No. 1 rule was: “Don’t tell me what the law is. Tell me who the judge is.”
In the ongoing criminal trial, elected progressive Democratic DA Alvin Bragg doesn’t have much of a case. But he has the judge, and that is all he needs.
Judge Juan Merchan is orchestrating Trump’s conviction of a crime that is not actually charged in the indictment: conspiracy to violate FECA (the Federal Election Campaign Act — specifically, its spending limits). That should not be possible in the United States, where the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment mandates that an accused may only be tried for a felony offense if it has been outlined with specificity in an indictment, approved by a grand jury that has found probable cause for that offense.
...
Yet, Judge Merchan has swallowed whole Bragg’s theory that he can enforce FECA. The judge not only ruled pre-trial that Bragg could prove the uncharged federal crime; he has abetted Bragg’s prosecutors in their framing of the case for the jury as a “criminal conspiracy,” notwithstanding that no conspiracy is actually charged in the indictment — under either federal or state law. And although the trial has been under way for just a week, Merchan has already made key rulings patently designed to convince the jury that Trump’s complicity in a conspiracy to violate FECA has already been established.
...
Even though prosecutors are not supposed to use Cohen’s guilty pleas to argue that Trump is guilty of campaign crimes, that is exactly what they are doing — and Merchan is letting them do it. In the prosecution’s opening statement, for example, in the context of explaining to the jury that Cohen, Pecker, and Trump had committed a “conspiracy” of “election fraud. Pure and simple,” Colangelo elaborated:
This is breathtakingly mendacious. Colangelo was not properly admonishing the jury that Cohen is a witness of dubious credibility. He was signaling to them that the NDA payments to McDougal and Daniels — for which he had just blamed Trump in an extensive narrative — were crimes for which Cohen “went to jail.” In reality, Cohen was sentenced to prison because of his lucrative fraud crimes, not the FECA charges. The SDNY never charged Trump, and it almost certainly wouldn’t have charged Cohen if he hadn’t agreed to plead guilty.
...
If this weren’t so cynical it might be amusing. Merchan let prosecutors make this argument right after pre-trial instructions, in which he explained to the jury:
This is true. Pecker is not an expert in federal campaign law — he shouldn’t be allowed to testify about it. And what he may have been thinking — or, even more of a stretch, what AMI’s general counsel may have been thinking — about whether it would have been legal for AMI to take reimbursement from Cohen and Trump is irrelevant. It is not admissible evidence of Trump’s state of mind, let alone Trump’s guilt on the uncharged conspiracy allegation. Nonetheless, Merchan let prosecutors intimate to the jury that a knowledgeable lawyer had told Pecker it would be illegal for AMI to be compensated by Cohen and Trump for the money paid to McDougal. The judge has to know that’s improper.
In calling Pecker as their first witness, prosecutors had him testify that federal law is violated by expenditures made for the purpose of influencing an election.
...
How Judge Merchan Is Orchestrating Trump’s Conviction | National Review
The former president is not charged with a conspiracy to steal the 2016 election — but the jury might think he is.
www.nationalreview.com
