A Shameful Verdict
A May 30th, 2024, Manhattan New York City jury, comprised of democrats, under the direction and persuasion of a highly conflicted and corrupt democrat donor judge found Trump to be guilty of 34 wrong accounting entries - nothing else. That finding will not be overturned during appeals. The issue is the severity of the crime by those accounting errors and if those accounting errors were beyond the statute of limitations.
Judge Juan Merchan allowed a George Soros funded District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, to upgrade 34 misdemeanors to felonies by using a federal law that allows misdemeanors to be upgraded to felonies if those misdemeanors sustained the perpetrator in committing some other felony.
The New York case will almost certainly be reversed on appeal to the New York First Division Appellate Court and possibly then the highest-level New York Court of Appeals. Here’s why:
- The trial judge, Merchan, violated Trump’s First Amendment rights with his overreaching gag order.
- Judge Merchan violated the Fifth Amendment because the crime was not specified in the indictment and Trump was denied “due process of law.”
- Judge Merchan violated the Sixth Amendment because Trump was denied the right “to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation” and was denied the right to have “process for obtaining witnesses in his favor.”
- Judge Merchan violated the Fourteenth Amendment, which applies the First, Fifth and Sixth Amendments to state actions under the “due process clause.”
Four U.S. Constitutional violations are enough to get the case reversed, but there were scores of other reversible errors committed by the uber judge, for example:
- Trump was not convicted by a unanimous jury vote for any of those felonies that Judge Merchan allowed Bragg to suggest to the jury as the underlying reasons for the 34 wrong accounting entries.
- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that guilty verdicts must be confirmed by a unanimous twelve-member jury vote to be valid in a criminal case. The current position of federal and state courts is that the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments require unanimous verdicts to convict a criminal defendant.
- In Judge Merchan’s instructions to the jury, he advised they didn’t have to unanimously agree on any crimes that were hidden by the accounting errors to still consider the entries to be felonies. Again, this is invalid based on the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
- The defense was not apprised of underlying crimes upgrading those 34 misdemeanors to felonies. The judge thwarted “due process” afforded all defendants according to the U.S. Constitution.
- Why was a state prosecutor allowed to bring forward a case using federal laws in a state court instead of federal courts? The federal courts found nothing wrong with these accounting entries in 2017.
- The judge instructed the jury to assume that underlying crimes were valid without the jury arriving at a unanimous agreement that those crimes were committed by Trump.
Yes, the jury found Trump guilty of those 34 accounting entries, but that is not what will be appealed. The appeal will be about how the judge allowed the use of underlying crimes to make these 34 accounting entries become felonies instead of misdemeanors. As misdemeanors, this case had no merit, even if the jurors were unanimous that Trump was guilty, because the accounting errors were created beyond the statute of limitations.
To make matters worse, not only is the presiding judge, Juan Merchan, a Biden donor, but his daughter, Loren Merchan, is a partner at a “progressive political consulting firm.” Her firm worked with the Kamala Harris presidential campaign, the Biden-Harris campaign, and the super PAC for Trump-hating Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA).No wonder Judge Merchan forced a gag order on President Trump, gave hostile treatment to defense witness Robert Costello, and continually ruled in favor of the prosecution during the trial. In outrageous jury instructions, he finally described the “crimes” Trump supposedly committed and outlined relaxed options for conviction that did not require a unanimous verdict. When a defendant only learns of his “crimes” during jury instructions, it is obviously a “rigged” case in a kangaroo court.
Cynics believe that New York’s Supreme Court, First Division Appellate Court and the New York Court of Appeals will be as biased as the trial court. That’s not necessarily accurate. Appellate law is quite different than trial law. There are no witnesses, and the facts are not disputed. The matters considered are all points of law. The lawyers submit briefs and deliver oral arguments. The salacious and financially motivated Stephanie Clifford, known professionally as Stormy Daniels, and the convicted serial liar Michael Cohen will not be in the courtrooms.
The First Division Appellate Court will be concentrating on two issues: applying the law correctly and not being overruled by the New York Court of Appeals, the highest court in the Unified Court System of the State of New York. Both considerations lean in favor of reversing Trump’s convictions.
The difficulty is the appeals process is unlikely to be concluded before the election. It takes time to file the motion, prepare the briefs, schedule the oral arguments, and render a judgment. An emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is possible, but that is a legal longshot.
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Robertshas always been timid, triesto duck many hard cases and often narrows, waffles and waters down proposed opinions to try to gain "consensus.”Another issue is if Trump tries to go direct on an emergency appeal, the Justice overseeing that circuit in New York is Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a member of the liberal bloc of justices.
The appealwould go first to Sotomayor, and she could reject it, send it back to New York, or accept it and rule in favor of Trump's appeal. Assuming she won't unequivocally approve of Trump’s appeal but doesn't want to be the sole justice who refused to hear the appeal or rule on it, she could refer the appeal to the Supreme Court who might vote to make a ruling.Which leads back to Chief Justice Roberts who might want to duck, influence the decision, oreven hear it.He mighttake the side of Justices Brown, Sotomayor, and Kagan and one other who might be influenced to send it back to New York--saying it was prudent to let the New York courts go first.We shall see!
The Winners and Losers:
Politically, the verdict is unlikely to damage Trump’s campaign. Trump’s fundraising exploded the night of the verdict. So many people logged on to make donations or volunteer that the Trump website briefly crashed. Over a 72-hour period since the verdict was determined, the campaign has raised 200 million dollars. Trump is already ahead in national and battleground state polls and this shameful verdict will increase his margins.
One wildcard is the sentence to be imposed by Judge Merchan. Some legal analysts assume Merchan will not put Trump in jail or won’t limit his ability to campaign. I disagree.
Judge Merchan has besmirched himself and the New York judicial system by his biased rulings against Trump and his unconstitutional jury instructions that practically dictated a guilty verdict. Legal critics rightfully suggest he’s a good candidate for representing a Columbian drug cartel because of his tyrannical behavior against the defense in the courtroom.
Judge Merchan doesn’t care about being reversed on appeal. He wants to damage Trump politically, here, and now. Why let up? He might put Trump in jail or, if not, at least put him under a supervised house arrest which will prevent Trump from campaigning, holding rallies, attending the debates, or joining the convention.
It won’t matter. Trump will win this election in a landslide.
The New York trial of Donald Trump was a national scandal. There is no real state or federal crime. The judge allowed testimony that was highly prejudicial, irrelevant and the judge intimidated defense witnesses. He made numerous unfair rulings, of which the prosecution has taken advantage.
The losers are Judge Merchan, the State of New York, and the American people. The world is laughing at the U. S. of Banana Republic today. Trump's trial is an insult to the intelligence of every American and an embarrassment to the men who died in the journey to constitute a land based on freedom and liberty.
Let’s hope a Trump victory in November restores some of our national pride and standing in the world.
------------------------
Primary Source: A Shameful Verdict
Editor: Jim Rickards of Strategic Intelligence
