I thought for sure it would be a conviction but now I am starting to lean towards a mistrial. Without Cohen, it's hard to believe Trump knowingly committed a felony. If they are allowed to consider misdemeanors, the prosecution should be successful with this jury.
How about reading those articles. Yes Cohen lied. Do a little research about the lies for what he was convicted. His lies were protecting Trump.
The obvious on the nose strategy here of attacking the judge says out loud that Trump expects to be convicted. Otherwise you have no reason to try to bully the ref here. The Judge isn't going to convict or acquit him. That will be whats called a JURY. The Judge just sentences a defendant if found guilty. .... At the same time you have right wing media going all out to convince their utterly stupid audience cult followers that the case is over, and there's no way the jury will convict. They are doing that so if he's found guilty then they can then can try to minimize the conviction, and say it's all just political, and the Jury is nothing but a bunch of Democrats, etc. etc. etc.
In addition by attacking the judge ahead of time, they can claim that the jury would not have convicted if the judge had actually been fair and not a foreign born leftist, so they should win their appeal. We don't know what the jury will do or what the sentence will be should they convict. Still up in the air at this point.
Merchan actually threatened to strike a witness' testimony from the record not because of the content of the testimony, but because of how the witness looked at the judge. That is insane and obvious grounds for overturning a conviction, but the judge and DA don't care if the conviction is overturned. https://nypost.com/2024/05/21/opini...ed-the-trump-trial-and-what-i-saw-shocked-me/ Many experienced lawyers raised their eyebrows when the judge excluded obviously relevant evidence when offered by the defense, while including irrelevant evidence offered by the prosecution. But when the defense’s only substantive witness, the experienced attorney Robert Costello, raised his eyebrows at one of New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan’s rulings, the court went berserk. Losing his cool and showing his thin skin, the judge cleared the courtroom of everyone including the media. For some reason, I was allowed to stay, and I observed one of the most remarkable wrong-headed biases I have ever seen. The judge actually threatened to strike all of Costello’s testimony if he raised his eyebrows again. That of course would have been unconstitutional because it would have denied the defendant his Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses and to raise a defense. It would have punished the defendant for something a witness was accused of doing. Even if what Costello did was wrong, and it was not, it would be utterly improper and unlawful to strike his testimony — testimony that undercut and contradicted the government’s star witness. The judge’s threat was absolutely outrageous, unethical, unlawful and petty. Moreover, his affect while issuing that unconstitutional threat revealed his utter contempt for the defense and anyone who testified for the defendant. The public should have been able to see the judge in action, but because the case is not being televised, the public has to rely on the biased reporting of partisan journalists. But the public was even denied the opportunity to hear from journalists who saw the judge in action because he cleared the courtroom. I am one of the few witnesses to his improper conduct who remained behind to observe his deep failings. There are television cameras in the courtroom, and they record and transmit every word, but not to the public; only select reporters in the overflow room see what the cameras transmit. There is absolutely no good reason why a trial of this importance, or any trial, should not be televised live and in real time. Allowing the public to see their courts in action is the best guarantee of fairness. As Justice Louis Brandeis wisely said a century ago, “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”
it'd behoove you to heed the advise of Abe Lincoln, “"better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt." what is insane is your foolish attempt to annoint the lies by NYPost as gospel
I honestly don't think they are even thinking about appeal at this point (even though of course they are planning to appeal like they do everything) because whether they win or lose on appeal in their minds, there's no way he's going to physically jail, and that's months if not years down the line. Everything is about the election. Winning the election, and ... well... becoming a dictator is his only way out of everything. He has to win the election, in his mind, by mobilizing his base to the highest turnout possible while bloodying up Biden & having a 3rd party siphon off votes. His strategy in going after the Judge is to intimidate for sure to try and work the refs at sentencing, and to create a caricature bad guy for his base to believe is as evil as George Soros and the Devil.
there is zero evidence Trump knew about the payments, and the prosecution has not said what crime was committed by making the payments (the FEC already looked at this and declined to fine or recommend prosecution)
Are we really going with this FEC thing again? Here are the actual facts. 1. The FEC Office of General Counsel recommended 29 times to charge Trump. The current case is just one of them. 2. The FEC committee is made up of 6 people. Three Republicans and Three Democrats 3. It takes 4 to vote to charge/investigate. 4. Every single time the FEC's Office of General Counsel has recommended charging Trump (29 times) the Republicans have voted against it.
I love how you guys take a statement that a Democrat makes which is just like objectively true, and then post the video in a tweet with a big conspiracy theory narrative that the video does nothing to actually support... the assumption on your end is nobody is actually going to watch the video obviously. Yes Trump was campaigning in the Bronx. Yes it is an odd place to campaign Yes it is odd because he's in court in Manhattan so he cannot travel far Yes Trump is an embarrassment to this nation Nowhere in that clip did AOC confirm that she, Bragg, and the Dems all colluded to create false accusations that would lead to indictments which would lead to Trump not being able to campaign as much as he used to therefore Biden would have a better chance at winning. Trump is there simply because he committed crimes. Trump is the only one to blame for doing criminal things that land you in court. Any idiot with half of a brain knows that the best campaign that Biden can put on is one where he takes clips of Trump saying outrageous things at campaign rallies in red states. Trump doing campaign rallies is good for Biden. Trump being exposed is good for Biden. Trump spending millions of dollars to put on Trumpchella 4 times a week instead of investing campaign money in ad buys, etc. is good for Biden. So this whole conspiracy theory is ridiculous. You guys are just looking for any excuse you can to live with and justify your support of Trump. It's as simple as that.
Evidence was presented in court that he knew of the payments. It included texts, witness testimony, business records and recordings.
