The jury in former president Donald Trump\u2019s Manhattan criminal trial continued to deliberate Thursday, with a verdict possible at any moment.<\/p>\n
And as we await that crucial decision, efforts to pre-spin the verdict by Trump and his allies have kicked into high gear.<\/p>\n
But as has long been the case, many of their complaints about the process are either false or lack important context.<\/p>\n
Below we look at five of the most recent claims calling into question New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan\u2019s actions or questioning the fairness of the trial.<\/p>\n
\u201cJudge in Trump case in NYC just told jury they don\u2019t have to unanimously agree on which crime was committed as long as they all at least pick one.\u201d \u2014 Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on Wednesday<\/p>\n
New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan \u201cis not requiring a unanimous decision on the fake charges against me\u201d \u2014 Trump on Wednesday<\/p>\n
This was the big talking point Wednesday, spurred by an X post from a Fox News host.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s highly misleading \u2014 at best.<\/p>\n
As The Washington Post\u2019s Philip Bump and Devlin Barrett noted, Merchan didn\u2019t say the jury doesn\u2019t need to be unanimous on which crimes Trump committed. The thing they needn\u2019t be unanimous on is something different: the unlawful means Trump used to affect the 2016 election.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s complicated. But basically: Falsifying business records \u2014 the crime alleged in the 34-count indictment against Trump \u2014 is normally a misdemeanor. But it can be charged as a felony if the falsification of the records is used to cover up another crime or the intent to commit another crime.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors identified three such crimes that could serve as the unlawful means. Merchan said jurors need not agree on which of the three apply.<\/p>\n
Importantly, even Trump\u2019s lawyers acknowledged that\u2019s how things usually work.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you agree that\u2019s not ordinarily required?\u201d Merchan asked Trump lawyer Emil Bove last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cCertainly,\u201d Bove responded.<\/p>\n
Bove argued that Merchan should nonetheless exercise discretion and require unanimity, citing how this is an \u201cextraordinarily important case.\u201d But Merchan agreed with prosecutors that Trump should be treated like other defendants.<\/p>\n
(Some allies, like South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem (R), have even argued that Merchan\u2019s decision violates Supreme Court precedent in 1999\u2019s Richardson v. United States, which required unanimity for underlying violations. But that case dealt with a specific federal statute, not state law or even all federal law. And the Supreme Court previously recognized, in Schad v. Arizona, the \u201clong-established rule that a jury need not agree on which overt act, among several, was the means by which a crime was committed.\u201d)<\/p>\n
\u201cIn many cases, the judge will actually give the jury a written copy of their instructions, but since he failed to do that in this case \u2026\u201d \u2014 Katie Cherkasky, a frequent legal pundit on Fox News, on Wednesday<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve tried many jury trials in my day. You give jurors paper instructions every time. \u2026 This is an illicit, witch-hunt prosecution.\u201d \u2014 Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) on Wednesday<\/p>\n
This objection seeped in late Wednesday, after the jury asked in a note to the judge that jury instructions be read to them again.<\/p>\n
How could Merchan not give them a copy of the extensive and complicated instructions?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a valid issue to consider \u2014 and one that legal minds have debated for years. But it\u2019s also a matter of law in New York, where juries are generally not given a copy of the instructions because it\u2019s not explicitly authorized by law. They can be given them if the defense consents, but Trump\u2019s team doesn\u2019t appear to have pressed the issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way it works in New York for as long as I\u2019ve been a lawyer [is that] the court does not provide written jury instructions, period,\u201d longtime Manhattan public defender Eliza Orlins said. \u201cOccasionally with consent from the defense, they will do so. But that puts the conviction at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Orlins noted that defendants can attempt to withdraw consent, complicating matters.<\/p>\n
Cheryl Bader of Fordham University law school in New York added: \u201cIn New York the default position is not to provide written instructions to the jury. The thinking behind that policy is not to have jurors be so focused on the court\u2019s written legal instructions that it distracts them from the evidence and testimony.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had the leading election expert in the country, Brad Smith, ready to testify. [Merchan] wouldn\u2019t let him do it.\u201d \u2014 Trump on Wednesday<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wouldn\u2019t even allow the defense to call a witness that would have shown what a sham and total waste of time this entire trial is.\u201d \u2014 Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump, Donald Trump\u2019s daughter-in-law, on Thursday morning<\/p>\n
Merchan \u201cdid not want the most important expert witness, the former commissioner of the Federal Election Commission, who knows the laws very well. The Judge would not allow him.\u201d \u2014 Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.) last week<\/p>\n
Merchan would have allowed Trump\u2019s lawyers to call Bradley Smith to testify if they wanted. He just limited what Smith could talk about, including restricting him from interpreting federal campaign finance law. So they didn\u2019t call Smith.<\/p>\n
New York law limits expert testimony to when \u201cthe subject matter is beyond the knowledge or understanding, or will dispel misconceptions, of a typical finder of fact.\u201d<\/p>\n
Merchan\u2019s decision on this front has some precedent. Smith was previously barred from providing such testimony in two other cases in Manhattan: the 2023 Sam Bankman-Fried case and a 2014 case.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of key witnesses were not called. \u2026 Why didn\u2019t they call those witnesses? They didn\u2019t call them, because they would have been on our side.\u201d \u2014 Trump on Wednesday<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have a lot of big players \u2014 very big players \u2014 that would have solved their problem or actually would have given us the win.\u201d \u2014 Trump on Wednesday<\/p>\n
These comments appeared to reference former longtime Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, among others. Weisselberg, after all, is a key figure in Trump\u2019s finances who prosecutors say was present at the crucial and disputed Trump Tower meeting that included former National Enquirer executive David Pecker and former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen. His absence from the trial is conspicuous.<\/p>\n
But prosecutors didn\u2019t call Weisselberg in part because he recently pleaded guilty to perjury in a separate Trump-related case \u2014 lying in a way that favored Trump. They also sought to emphasize that Weisselberg\u2019s lucrative severance agreement with Trump bars him from voluntarily cooperating with any investigation.<\/p>\n
But the main point is this: Trump\u2019s lawyers were allowed to call witnesses, too. And they didn\u2019t call Weisselberg. Similarly, they could have called any other witnesses that would have been on Trump\u2019s \u201cside\u201d or given him the \u201cwin.\u201d<\/p>\n
They called just one witness. And it didn\u2019t go particularly well.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have talked about, did the defense at some point [Tuesday] just decide it\u2019s not worth objecting anymore. Because we\u2019re drawing attention to the fact that this judge is overruling nearly everything that we\u2019re trying to do \u2026 A judge has enormous impact on a trial.\u201d \u2014 Fox host Shannon Bream on Wednesday<\/p>\n
\u201cThe judge overrules every objection from the defense and sustains every objection from the prosecution.\u201d \u2014 Fox host Jesse Watters on Tuesday night<\/p>\n
Merchan did not overrule every defense objection on Tuesday. A review of the transcript shows he sustained about one-third of them. He sustained more of the prosecution\u2019s objections, but that doesn\u2019t take into account the substance of the objections.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The jury in former president Donald Trump\u2019s Manhattan criminal trial continued to deliberate Thursday, with a verdict possible at any moment. And as we await that crucial decision, efforts to pre-spin the verdict by Trump and his allies have kicked into high gear. But as has long been the case, many of their complaints about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5034,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}