{"id":2255559,"date":"2024-05-30T07:53:02","date_gmt":"2024-05-30T11:53:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/judge-merchans-jury-instructions-prove-trumps-trial-is-about-power-not-the-law\/"},"modified":"2024-05-30T07:54:46","modified_gmt":"2024-05-30T11:54:46","slug":"judge-merchans-jury-instructions-prove-trumps-trial-is-about-power-not-the-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/judge-merchans-jury-instructions-prove-trumps-trial-is-about-power-not-the-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge Merchan&#8217;s jury instructions reveal that Trump&#8217;s trial revolves around power, not just the law"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fjudge-merchans-jury-instructions-prove-trumps-trial-is-about-power-not-the-law%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2255559&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The\u2064 trial of former President \u200bDonald\u2064 Trump in New York centers on controversial jury instructions by\u200c Judge Juan Merchan. Jurors were told they didn&#8217;t have\u200d to agree on the alleged crime\u200d for a unanimous guilty verdict. The prosecution&#8217;s theory involves hush money\u2062 payments and unclear underlying crimes. The\u2063 trial seems focused\u200c on \u200bconvicting Trump\u2063 at all costs, raising concerns \u200babout \u200cthe fairness of the proceedings.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<p><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><\/p>\n<div class=\"article-content\">\n<p>If you\u2019ve been following former President Donald Trump\u2019s hush-money trial in New York, you might have seen the shocking news that the judge in that trial, Juan Merchan, issued bizarre and plainly unconstitutional jury instructions on Wednesday, telling jurors they <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/JonathanTurley\/status\/1795829624502681688\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">need not agree on what crime Trump allegedly committed<\/a> to reach a unanimous guilty verdict.<\/p>\n<p>You read that right. According to Judge Merchan, the jury could come back with a guilty verdict without agreeing on whether Trump committed election fraud, tax fraud, or falsification of business records. He essentially divided the jury into three groups of four, saying that if they\u2019re split 4-4-4 on what crime Trump committed, he\u2019d treat that as unanimous. To say this is unusual is of course a gross understatement. As Guy Benson <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/guypbenson\/status\/1795835174586122539\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">noted on X<\/a>, it amounts to a \u201cchoose your own adventure\u201d jury instruction. <\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2-long d-flex justify-content-center\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center; \" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-404249678\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-1379703300879-0\" class=\"mb-30\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-3496ecce4e390c12b94efe850cb746c2 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-3496ecce4e390c12b94efe850cb746c2\"><\/div>\n<p>To make sense of these instructions, however, one must first understand the insane underlying theory of the case the prosecution has attempted to make, which is no easy task. It goes something like this. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted Trump on 34 counts relating to allegations that Trump instructed his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, to pay \u201chush money\u201d to pornographer Stormy Daniels to conceal an alleged past affair, and then falsified business records to label the payments as legal fees instead of campaign expenses. <\/p>\n<p>Setting aside that it would have been a violation of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/registered-foreign-agent-gave-200k-to-mcauliffe-campaign\/\" title=\"Registered Foreign Agent Gave 0K to McAuliffe Campaign\">federal campaign finance law<\/a> to label such payments as campaign expenses, Trump\u2019s alleged falsification of business records would only qualify as felonies if they were done in the service of some other crime that Trump intended to commit or conceal. What crime was that? The prosecutors have been vague on that point. No one can really say what crime, if any, the alleged falsification of business records was connected with. <\/p>\n<p>Even now, after closing arguments, it\u2019s not clear what underlying crime Trump was trying to conceal. During closing arguments earlier this week, Merchan allowed the prosecution to claim repeatedly that Trump committed federal campaign violations, which is not true. He then said the prosecution had referenced three <em>possible<\/em> crimes that could constitute the illegal means Trump used to influence the election: a federal election violation (which didn\u2019t happen), a tax violation, and falsification of records. Jurors need not agree on which of these three occurred, said Merchan, but could also reach a unanimous verdict so long as the crime they all agree to was in furtherance of another crime. <\/p>\n<p>But it gets worse. Merchan also barred Trump\u2019s defense lawyers from explaining to the jury that no campaign finance violations had occurred and then allowed prosecutors (who gave their closing statement <em>after<\/em> the defense) to claim, falsely, that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/americas-banana-republic-era-is-here-manhattan-grand-jury-votes-to-indict-trump\/\" title=\"America\u2019s Banana Republic Era Is Here: Manhattan Grand Jury Votes To Indict Trump\">federal campaign finance violations<\/a> had indeed occurred. The judge didn\u2019t try to correct prosecutors or clarify any of this for jurors before sending them away to deliberate.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-e38ee6d79e8ed27c4cb4f8632fac616b fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-6\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-e38ee6d79e8ed27c4cb4f8632fac616b\"><\/div>\n<p>It\u2019s pretty clear by now, if it wasn\u2019t before, that this entire trial is a fishing expedition designed to convict Trump of <em>something<\/em>. Jonathan Turley <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/opinion\/criminal-justice\/4691715-a-manhattan-canned-hunt-the-trump-jury-is-out-but-is-the-case-in-the-bag\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">called it<\/a> a \u201cmanufactured criminal theory,\u201d which it obviously is. Last April when the indictment was unsealed, my colleague Margot Cleveland <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2023\/04\/05\/alvin-braggs-trump-indictment-is-even-more-pathetic-and-partisan-than-we-could-have-imagined\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">wrote<\/a> that Bragg had attempted to \u201cbootstrap a federal election violation onto state law by claiming Trump falsified the business records to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/alvin-braggs-trump-indictment-is-even-more-pathetic-and-partisan-than-we-could-have-imagined\/\" title=\"Alvin Bragg\u2019s Trump Indictment Is Even More Pathetic And Partisan Than We Could Have Imagined\">conceal campaign finance crimes<\/a>,\u201d and that the charges were \u201ceven more pathetic than anticipated.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Now that the oral argument phase of the trial is over, the prosecution\u2019s case hasn\u2019t improved. In fact, it appears to be so weak that Merchan is discarding not just basic legal norms to get the jury to convict, but also basic reason. After all, how can a jury reach a unanimous verdict if they don\u2019t even agree on what happened?<\/p>\n<p>The only way to understand any of this is to realize that this isn\u2019t about the law or seeing justice done for a crime. It\u2019s about power. Denying Trump basic constitutional rights such as due process, as Merchan has done repeatedly in this case, is a way to demonstrate that Trump has no power compared to the New York Democrats who are trying to jail him before the November election. That was also the purpose of the unintentionally humorous press conference with actor Robert De Niro the Biden campaign held outside the courthouse this week.<\/p>\n<p>These demonstrations of power aren\u2019t meant merely to demoralize Trump and restrict his ability to campaign for president, they\u2019re also meant to demoralize his millions of supporters all over the country. They are meant to understand that their man is going down and they would be smart to submit to those who actually have power: Democrats.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-2afa411942cda410894a334e5fd9e102 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-10\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-2afa411942cda410894a334e5fd9e102\"><\/div>\n<p>It\u2019s also something more than that. It\u2019s a threat. After all, if they can do this to Trump, just imagine what they can do to you.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-1e9c83bbd7445c68fbf70928c0c169f2 fdrlst__b89e9-after-post-content\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-1e9c83bbd7445c68fbf70928c0c169f2\"><\/div>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\">    \t\t\t\t\t   \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Have you been tracking ex-President Trump&#8217;s hush-money trial in New York? The judge, Juan Merchan, stirred controversy by issuing potentially unconstitutional jury instructions. Jurors were told they didn&#8217;t need to agree on the alleged crime for a unanimous guilty verdict. A significant development in a trial focused on power dynamics, not just legal aspects<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":518,"featured_media":2255560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Trump-1.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2255559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Trump-1.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2255559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/518"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2255559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2255559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2255560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2255559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2255559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2255559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}