Manhattan District Legal professional Alvin Bragg’s Theater of the Absurd entered its third week, nonetheless with none proof of crimes dedicated by the accused.
Playwright Samuel Beckett can be proud. The Trump hush cash trial is like “Ready for Godot” —a chaotic and nonsensical plot of absurdist fiction. The titular Godot, after all, by no means arrives. It’s an apt metaphor for Bragg’s case in opposition to Donald Trump. Jurors could also be ready in useless for legal offenses that don’t truly exist within the legislation.
All of which makes it a trial looking for an imaginary crime.
However the District Legal professional appears totally unbothered that his fees are mutable, ill-defined, illusory, or simply plain absent. As a substitute, he’s contrived a histrionic authorized fable meant to idiot the jury into considering that Trump needs to be convicted for assignations with nefarious folks like his ex-lawyer and convicted perjurer, Michael Cohen, in addition to erstwhile porn star, Stormy Daniels.
On Tuesday, one other phantasm of wrongdoing took middle stage when Cohen’s banker, Gary Farro, testified that his consumer appeared anxious to create a shell firm that was used to wire Daniels $130,000. However shell corporations are completely authorized, and there’s no proof by any means that Trump even knew about it. In accordance with final week’s essential witness, former Nationwide Enquirer writer David Pecker, Cohen acted all on his personal with out his boss’ information.
Bragg’s courtroom smear marketing campaign in opposition to Trump continued with prosecution witness Keith Davidson, the Los Angeles lawyer for Daniels and Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal, who purportedly had an affair with Trump. Davidson negotiated the so-called “hush cash” funds for each his purchasers, which had been utterly lawful. Paying somebody for his or her silence in trade for a non-disclosure settlement isn’t against the law. Certainly, it’s a staple of 1000’s of settlement agreements signed day by day.
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As I famous in my final column, the DA’s inclusion of McDougal within the trial is gratuitous, irrelevant, and prejudicial. Why? As a result of Trump refused her calls for for cash in what smacks of extortion. He by no means doled out a penny. She’s named nowhere within the indictment, and Trump dedicated no crime in connection along with her. However that didn’t cease Bragg from introducing in any other case inadmissible proof to vilify the defendant.
Prosecutors additionally exploited the McDougal-Daniels imbroglio to backdoor a outstanding point out in court docket of the notorious “Entry Hollywood” tape that proved damaging to Trump simply weeks earlier than the 2016 election. Such proof ought to by no means be permitted since its scant probative worth is materially outweighed by the prejudicial impact on the jury. Regardless of. That’s precisely what Bragg needs.
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The District Legal professional’s technique is to stain the defendant with salacious tales to create a misunderstanding within the minds of the jurors. In a traditional courtroom with a good decide, it could be excluded with out debate. However in Bragg’s Kabuki Theater all the things is allowed, and each prosecutorial deception is a Trump chimera. He should be dangerous, don’t , as a result of he fraternized with scandalous folks.
It doesn’t matter to Bragg that Trump perpetrated not one of the crimes alleged throughout opening statements or that any responsible verdict will inevitably be overturned on enchantment. He doesn’t care in regards to the injury his meritless case is doing to the authorized system. The DA’s goal is to sully the presumptive GOP nominee for president to unduly affect the upcoming election. It’s a politically motivated prosecution and a disgraceful abuse of the rule of legislation.
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Any trustworthy, educated, and clever decide would have way back tossed the case. As a substitute, it was given to Juan Merchan. His conspicuous bias in opposition to Trump is exceeded solely by his seeming incompetence.
For proof, look no additional than his unconstitutional gag order prohibiting Trump from commenting about witnesses like Cohen and Daniels. They will not be gagged and have been free to trash Trump publicly whereas profiting financially off the hatred they recurrently spew. However Trump is gagged from responding to defend himself within the court docket of public opinion as he runs for president.
On the conclusion of a listening to on Tuesday, Merchan fined the defendant $9,000 for merely reposting feedback that different folks already stated or wrote publicly. It was the utmost quantity that might be levied beneath legal contempt legal guidelines and is mere “chump change” to a billionaire. However the decide then threatened to jail Trump if he violates the illegitimate gag order once more. That gained’t occur, as a result of not even Merchan is that dumb. On second thought…
Make no mistake, Merchan’s poorly worded, obscure, and semi-literate orders muffling Trump are a previous restraint on free speech that’s protected by the First Modification. There isn’t any exception within the Invoice of Rights for defendants in legal trials. However clueless judges like Merchan usually shred constitutional rights with lawless gag orders as a result of they’re smug and imperious. They’re bullies who know that by the point there’s a profitable enchantment, the trial is over and the arguments are rendered moot. So, they get away with it, which solely emboldens them.
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It needs to be identified that Merchan is an “performing” decide, which is a felicitous description for a jurist who seems deeply unqualified to preside over the trial of a former president of america. Oh…and he simply occurs to be the identical decide who presided over two different Trump circumstances. A coincidence? Hardly. What are the chances? Frequent sense and the legislation of averages make it extremely inconceivable, since there are greater than 100 trial judges in New York Metropolis.
Bragg went “decide buying” and bought what he needed.
A month in the past, I wrote that Merchan was required to recuse himself. His grownup daughter has an financial curiosity in her father’s case, which creates a disqualifying battle of curiosity for the decide. As a political activist, her outstanding consulting agency reaped tens of millions of {dollars} by solicitation mailings that cited the Trump trial over which her dad presides.
Merchan’s recusal is obligatory, not voluntary, beneath the New York Code of Guidelines & Rules, 22 NYCRR 100.3 (E). Individually, even the looks of impropriety arising from a perceived battle is ample for disqualification beneath the Guidelines of Judicial Conduct. But, Merchan ignored moral guidelines and refused to step apart regardless of repeated petitions by the protection to take action. Even worse, the decide has gagged Trump from even mentioning his daughter and her monetary curiosity within the case.
The jurors could not understand it, however the repair is in. Trump is being prosecuted by an unscrupulous D.A. who campaigned on the promise to focus on the previous president. The prosecutor is aided and abetted by a hopelessly biased decide who appears decided to assist engineer a conviction regardless of a paucity of crimes dedicated.
Alvin Bragg’s Theater of the Absurd is an insult to the rules of justice that People maintain expensive.
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