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Juan Merchan, the judge overseeing former President Donald Trump's criminal trial in New York City, notified the 45th president's defense attorney and a Manhattan prosecutor that there's been another twist — a potentially significant one — following the May 30 verdict finding Trump guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records. In a letter dated June 7, Judge Merchan writes to Trump attorney Todd Blanche and ADA Joshua Steinglass (emphasis added):Dear Counsel:Today, the Court became aware of a comment that was posted on the Unified Court System's public Facebook page and which I now bring to your attention. In...

It’s been amusing to see Democrats realizing that their lawfare strategy against Trump hasn’t been working. First, the indictments only boosted Trump’s position in GOP primary polling, and then the New York trial didn’t even hurt him. Various polls since last week's verdict have shown little to no shift towards Joe Biden, and some even suggest a boost for Donald Trump. So far, there’s little reason to believe that the verdict will be a watershed event that will help Biden retake the lead in the election. And Biden just got some more devastating news. A new poll of Virginia shows...

Former President Donald Trump’s conviction just might have been the missing key in his securing the 2024 election against President Joe Biden. According to a new Quinnipiac University Georgia poll, Trump holds an advantage over Biden (49 - 44 percent) in a head-to-head matchup in the crucial battleground state. Despite the unprecedented move, the conviction against Trump seems to working in his favor— a stark contrast from what the Democratic Party was hoping for when bringing politically motivated charges against him. The survey also revealed that in a six-way hypothetical race that includes other candidates, Trump still leads with 43...

Careful what you wish for, Democrats. Democrats salivated for the opportunity to campaign on former President Trump's criminal convictions. He's a convicted felon. Guess what is happening? Trump is receiving more support than ever. This was pretty easy to predict for anyone paying attention. In this presidential election year, the more Donald Trump is indicted, the more support he receives in the polls. It turns out that Americans don't like lawfare being used against a former president and leading presidential candidate in a presidential election year. Voters don't like what they are seeing from Democrats. Democrat lawyers and prosecutors are...

Judge Merchan seems to have no alternative but to sentence Trump to jail, given the obvious fact that Merchan and his rabid constituents are inflamed by the enormity of Trump’s conviction on thirty-four felony counts. However, there are problems that place the judge between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Here are some possible issues: What if the Republican convention is moved forward to, say, July 4th to be convened at Mar-A-Lago? Trump would be chosen as the Republican nominee for President. Then, Merchan would be sentencing the Republican nominee for President. That’s an escalation that might cause the...

Former Attorney General William Barr called the New York hush money case against former President Trump an “abomination” in a Wednesday interview and said he was confident the guilty verdict will be overturned on appeal. “When people were talking about it, I said that the case was an abomination, and I didn’t think it was going to be brought at the end of the day because it was so vaporous,” Barr told Fox News’s Jimmy Failla in an interview on “Fox Across America.” “I was surprised they went ahead with it,” Barr said about New York prosecutors. “And it’s met...

A new poll shows that a sizable plurality of the American people believe that the New York trial of former President Donald Trump was a politically-motivated show trial.As the Daily Caller reports, the ABC News/Ipsos poll shows that 47% of Americans believe the trial was indeed a political hit job, while 38% say that the trial was legitimate and fair.On the question of the “guilty” verdict, 50% of respondents believe the verdict was correct; by contrast, just 27% believe the verdict was wrong, while the remaining 23% said they “don’t know” what to believe with regards to the verdict.Among those...

There is something vital and profoundly disturbing missing from Alvin Bragg’s prosecution of Donald Trump: police involvement. It’s possible some police officers were assigned to the prosecutor’s office, but if so, their names do not appear in the indictment (available here), nor, according to The Hill, there were no police officers among the 20 prosecution and two defense witnesses. I’ve been unable to find any evidence of police participation.Graphic: YouTube ScreenshotSo, no cops were apparently involved. So what?The police are an essential initiator of criminal charges. They’re also a multi-layered filter for false and/or political charges against the innocent. Among...

Up until now, Democrats have loved felons. The advent of Soros district attorneys and the criminal justice "reform" movement has turned felons into Democrat heroes. Just ask George Floyd. But they've done a 180 now, screaming from every mountaintop that President Trump is a 'felon,' which is highly questionable given that the case they hit him with stands a good chance of being thrown out on appeal. But they're happy enough about it, given that they achieved their political aim, which was to be able to call Trump a 'felon' and peel off a few GOP votes from him ahead...

OK, serious answers only please... I'm trying to understand exactly what felony Trump was convicted of in yesterday's verdict. Here's what I understand (please correct me if I am wrong or inaccurate in any of my interpretation) : 1) Trump was accused of a sexual affair with Porn Star Stormy Daniels almost 20 years ago. 2) 9 years later, as Trump was planning to ran for President, he had Stormy Daniels sign a non-disclosuer agreement in exchange for paying her $130,000 for her silence. 3) Trump is being charged with falsifying business records in relation to this particular payment. Now,...

It's official, the verdict is in, and the deed is done; as RedState's own Susie Moore reported only moments ago, former President Donald John Trump has been found guilty of all counts by a Manhattan jury. The next few days will be filled with discussion of this result and what will happen next. As a certain character in a certain film franchise involving gene-engineered dinosaurs famously repeated: "Hold on to your butts." One of the biggest questions is this: "How will this affect the 2024 election?" The nominations on both sides are effectively decided. Donald Trump has the delegates sewn...

If the five-woman, seven-man jury doesn't find Donald Trump guilty of the alleged bookkeeping mistakes, it will be a miracle. This is because the 55-page final jury instructions that attorneys saw only moments before the judge read them in court on Wednesday is a "directed verdict" to Trump's guilt. That's it. That's why an uncharacteristically somber Trump announced that even "Mother Teresa couldn't beat these charges." See his comments below. The "fix is in," as one notable former U.S. attorney decreed. "This is most corrupt judicial proceeding in the history of the United States," former District of Columbia U.S. Attorney...

The more time we have to look through Judge Juan Merchan's byzantine jury instructions in Donald Trump's "hush money" trial in Manhattan, the worse they look. The vague nature of the instructions has even led to disputes among legal analysts who have struggled to make sense of the case from the beginning. At Townhall, our colleague Matt Vespa has a good rundown of one of the most glaring problems with the instructions. The judge gave the jurors the unheard-of option of picking any one of three crimes that were "concealed" by the entry of "false business records" and said that...

It’s true that Trump has been charged with a non-crime and that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against Trump has been severely undermined by his own witnesses. In fact, several Democrat experts have said Trump could be acquitted because of how bad some of the prosecution’s witnesses have been for the case. But between the partisan jury and Biden donor Judge Juan Merchan’s jury instructions, it seems likely that Trump will be found guilty. So the question is: what happens if the jury returns a guilty verdict? According to conservative radio host Mark Levin, in the event of a...

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley has been following the trial of Donald Trump in Manhattan closely. Yesterday Turley pretty much considered the prosecution's closing arguments to be a dumpster fire and also has been far from impressed by Judge Juan Merchan's handling of the trial: ...The fraud instruction alone is so generalized that it would seem to encompass any claim that the defendant sought to influence the election through his actions. Merchan has done little to tailor standard instructions for this novel and frankly troubling case...— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) May 28, 2024This morning Judge Merchan is delivering instructions...

Closing arguments in the trial of former President Donald Trump in New York City, where he is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, have concluded and Judge Juan Merchan has given the jury their instructions. The instructions were given verbally and jurors won't receive printed copies, although they can ask questions. According to legal experts, Merchan's standards for a conviction are abnormal and do not require jurors to reach a unanimous decision on the charges. Further, jurors don't have to determine what crime was committed. "Judge Merchan has ruled that the jury does not have to agree...

It's no secret that Judge Juan Merchan is a partisan judge who has exhibited prejudicial behavior against Donald Trump in his Manhattan trial, but famed lawyer and law professor Alan Dershowitz had to see for himself. He attended the Trump trial on Monday and was appalled at what he saw.Dershowitz appeared on Sean Hannity's show on Fox News Monday evening, during which he destroyed Merchan for his conduct during the testimony of Michael Cohen's former lawyer, Bob Costello. It got extremely tense at times, and Merchan even cleared the courtroom before scolding Costello over his alleged violation of decorum. “I’d...

Judge Juan Merchan gagged President Trump and his lawyers, but doesn’t gag Micheal Cohen or the prosecution. Merchan doesn’t care that the prosecution hasn’t actually shown a crime that segues to a supposed bookkeeping violation. The judge won’t allow an expert defense witness who would testify that there was clearly no campaign finance violation that would allow the prosecution to go back to the supposed hush money expenses. The judge doesn’t care that state courts have no jurisdiction over federal election laws. The judge doesn’t care how much Cohen lies on the stand. He doesn’t even care that Cohen is...

After Michael Cohen's disastrous testimony, it would seem that the case against President Trump over the bookkeeping entry in a hush-money payment case would be in tatters as it goes to the jury. Many legal eagles have said as much. But the politically partisan New York justice in this case, Juan Merchan, doesn't give up that fast and clearly wants to salvage the case. He's instructing the jury to ignore the detail about the 'underlying crime' and treat the case the same way a burglary case is treated. According to Newsweek:A hush-money payment is not illegal, and under New York...

Well, it's toilet-flushing time, with the Trump trial resuming, this time with Michael Cohen on the stand again crossed examined by the defense. Taken in line with the trial's biased judge, its corrupt district attorney, its beyond-trashy witness Stormy Daniels, Cohen managed to top them all in sheer disgustingness, openly admitting in court that he stole $30,000 from his employer like it was a good thing. According to the Associated Press: Cohen was the last witness — at least for now — for prosecutors, who are trying to prove that Trump sought to bury unflattering stories about himself and then...