Itâs hard to describe adequately what happened to Donald Trump in a New York courtroom recently.
Hans A. von Spakovsky
Outrageous? A travesty of justice? A devasting blow to the sanctity of our justice system and its reputation for fairness and nonpartisanship? An American repetition of the Soviet show trials of the 1930s?
Itâs all of those things. And you donât have to be a Trump supporter to understand that.
The former president was convicted of 34 misdemeanors for paperwork errors that were changed to felonies because he had supposedly violated another state law that makes it a crime to use âunlawfulâ means to promote or oppose a candidateâs election.
And what did that âunlawfulâ mean? The defendant didnât know because those other crimes werenât mentioned in the indictment. The judge told the jurors they didnât need to agree on what other crimes the defendant had committed.
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No, said the judge, the jury could consider violations of tax law, or a violation of federal campaign finance law or some other unnamed law for listing as a legal expense â instead of as a campaign expense â a settlement payment to an individual who was represented by counsel in a legitimate and legal transaction.Â
The judge acted like a prosecution team member throughout this case. Judge Juan Merchan consistently ruled against Trump and allowed the prosecution to essentially do whatever it wanted, including admitting evidence and allowing testimony to matters that were irrelevant to the actual charges and whose purpose was to confuse the jury and harm the defendantâs character.
Judge Merchan committed the same sorts of error that recently prompted the New York Court of Appeals in People v. Weinstein to throw out Harvey Weinsteinâs rape conviction. How so? The trial judge in that case abused his discretion by admitting irrelevant testimony and evidence comprising, as the appeals court said, âuntested allegations of nothing more than bad behavior that destroys a defendantâs character but sheds no light on their credibility as related to the criminal charges lodged against them.â
Moreover, Merchan should never have presided over this case. Merchan should have recused himself from handling it. In addition to donating money to the Joe Biden campaign and to an effort called âStop Republicans,â his daughter is a Democratic political consultant whose firm did work for the Biden-Harris campaign.
After a six-week trial, the jury took less than two days to find Trump guilty of 34 felony charges. This hardly seems like enough time to take a hard, objective look at the lack of evidence produced by the prosecution. This suggests that political bias and animus toward the defendant may have been a decisive factor during their hasty deliberations.
This is especially true given the only people who could provide any insight into what Trump did and what he knew about the alleged offenses were Allen Weisselberg and Michael Cohen. Weisselberg was the Trump Organizationâs chief finance officer whom the prosecution did not call as a witness. Cohen lied under oath on prior occasions, acknowledged he hates Trump and blames Trump for everything that has gone wrong in his life.
When the defense team files its appeals brief, it will probably have to be the size of the novel âWar and Peaceâ to list all of the legal errors committed by the judge and the prosecution. The Appeals Court of New York should follow the example of the Supreme Court. When Trumpâs lawyers filed an appeal with that court over Coloradoâs unconstitutional action in disqualifying Trump from the ballot, the court acted with unprecedented speed.
The New York courts have a duty to do the same thing. I donât have a lot of faith in those courts, many of whose judges seem infected with partisan politics influencing what they do.
It is a sad day for America and a justice system that was, until now, much admired and copied worldwide.
Von Spakovsky is a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a former commissioner on the Federal Election Commission and a lawyer at the Justice Department. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.
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