Appropriately at midnight last night, CNN ran its Trump Trial update with an over-the-top apocalyptic headline: â
Judgment day looms for Donald Trump in New York.â Closing arguments finished late, after 8pm last night, with the prosecution getting four times as much time as the defense, which was required by a strange New York law to go first, before hearing what crime the prosecution would come up with. The jury will receive instructions this morning at 10am and then begin deliberating. Jonathan Turley called the day âotherworldly.â
CLIP: Jonathan Turley on NY v. Trump trial: What I saw today was outrageous | Fox (8:53).
In trying to sell its jumped-up p*rn case as something meaningful, the prosecution rankly speculated (at best), or cited facts not in evidence (at worst):
I wasnât there, but as an attorney that highlighted line seems highly objectionable and maybe even grounds for a mistrial. The prosecution never put on any evidence that the check notations affected the election. They couldâve called an elections expert had they wanted. But they didnât, so it seems downright batty they could be allowed to speculate about the various expensesâ electoral effects in their closing argument, jamming that wild notion into the jurorsâ minds with the stamp of judicial officialdom.
Nevertheless, CNN cemented this case into history, not just because it was the first criminal trial of a president, but because it was the first criminal trial where, after all the witnesses had testified, after all the evidence was in the record, and both sides had finished making their closing arguments, the jurors still
donât know what crime the defendant stands accused of:
Another crime?
What crime?? CNNâs article doesnât say, and thereâs a good reason for that. They donât know, the jury doesnât know, the judge doesnât know, Trump doesnât know, and even the prosecutors donât know. The prosecutors are hoping the jury will figure out what crime happened.
As Professor Jonathan Turley explained in the clip above, Judge Merchan let the prosecutors repeatedly call the Cohen payments âillegal campaign contribution violations,â which prosecutors never even tried to prove, and which the payments couldnât possibly have been anyway, since there is no limit to a candidateâs contributions to his own campaign.
Jury deliberations begin today in Trump's Kafaesque show-trial; dems are freaking out; Biden's pier back in the news; two front war seems unlikely; baffled scientists wonder about weather; and more.
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