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Judge Merchan Is a Hoodlum in Black Robes
To “Get Trump,” Judge Juan Merchan turned his courtroom into a crime scene.
Merchan unleashed irregularities, torpedoed judicial norms, perpetrated injustices, violated state laws, shredded civil rights, and wiped his shoes on the U.S. Constitution. In cahoots with his co-persecutor, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Merchan on Thursday buffaloed 12 jurors into finding Donald J. Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsification of business records.
Instead, Merchan brazenly lowered an anvil onto the Guilty side of that scale.
On November 5, 161 million registered voters should reverse this shonda.
There are abundant reasons for the American people to exonerate Trump after a show trial that would have charmed Joseph Stalin.
Defying New York State’s Uniform Rules For Courts Exercising Criminal Jurisdiction, Section 200.11(c), Merchan did not receive New York State vs. Donald J. Trump via a “method of random selection.” Instead, the court’s administrative judge hand-picked Merchan for this duty. Merchan refereed two earlier Trump Organization matters and will supervise the upcoming prosecution of former Trump advisor Steve Bannon. Merchan has become New York’s illegally designated “Get Trump” judge. Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R – New York) on May 29 filed an ethics complaint to investigate this corruption.
Notwithstanding Trump’s motion under Criminal Procedure Laws CPL § 230.20 and § 230.30, Merchan rejected defense requests for a new venue. Trump’s lawyers feared (presciently) that their client had “reasonable cause to believe that a fair and impartial trial” could not take place in New York County, AKA Manhattan.
In 2020, Biden won New York State 60.8 percent to 37.7 percent for Trump, according to Wikipedia. However, among the Empire State’s 62 counties, Biden’s widest margin was in New York County, which went 86.4 percent for Biden versus 12.2 percent for Trump.
It would have been similarly unfair to Bragg to move the trial to Wyoming County (Trump’s best), where Biden won just 26.1 percent to 71.5 percent for Trump.
A more equitable venue would have been Monroe (home to Rochester), which most closely mirrored the state; it voted for Biden 59.25 percent to 38.2 percent for Trump. A perfectly even jury pool could have sprung from Long Island’s Suffolk County. It split Solomonically 49.3 percent for Biden to 49.3 percent for Trump.
Merchan would have none of this.
But if a change of venue made no sense in this high-profile trial, then when would it?
Under New York State’s Judiciary Law Article 2 § 14, Merchan should have recused himself since “he is related by consanguinity or affinity to any party to the controversy within the sixth degree.”
Merchan’s first-degree blood relative is his daughter, Loren Merchan, a Democrat Party activist. She was director of digital persuasion for the Kamala Harris for the People campaign in 2019. She now is president of Authentic Campaigns, a digital-marketing and communications operation. Authentic’s website invokes Trump’s name to generate new business. President Joe Biden appears right up front, among the candidates whom Authentic has served.
Merchan’s crime cafeteria obliterated 657 years of jury unanimity, a core Anglo-American common-law principle since 1367.
Trump’s attorneys estimate that Authentic has scored $18 million from its clients since April 2023, when Bragg indicted Trump. Authentic’s clients, meanwhile, raised at least $93 million via Authentic’s digital ads that mentioned Trump’s case.
All of this constitutes a massive conflict of interest for Judge Merchan or, at least, a flashing-neon-sign appearance of a conflict. Either way, Merchan should have recused himself. Instead, he supervised this case even as his daughter earned millions during the trial and now, with Trump convicted, could generate even more millions.
According to the New York State Unified Court System’s Rules of the Chief Administrative Judge, Section 100.5(A)(h), “A judge … shall refrain from inappropriate political activity … [including] making a contribution to a political organization or candidate.”
Nonetheless, in July 2020, Judge Merchan donated $15 to President Biden and $10 each to the Progressive Turnout Project and its subsidiary, Stop Republicans. The latter, the New York Post reports, is “a grassroots-funded effort dedicated to resisting the Republican Party and Donald Trump’s radical right-wing legacy.” While those amounts are small, they broke the rules and politically are no less significant than being “slightly pregnant” — either you’re knocked up or you’re not.
Imagine that Merchan contributed $15 to Trump 2024 and $10 each to Let’s Go, Brandon PAC and the Mega-MAGA Victory Fund. ANTIFA already would have incinerated the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse.
Merchan defied statutes of limitations. He let Bragg’s indictment proceed, never mind that its most recent charge concerned Trump’s alleged conduct on December 5, 2017. Bragg filed on April 4, 2023 — 120 days after the statute of limitations had expired on the pertinent Class E felonies, and three years and 120 days after the deadline on corresponding misdemeanors.
Merchan routinely steamrolled the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights. For starters, he let Bragg resurrect his indictment’s dead misdemeanors by claiming that Trump used fake business records “with intent to commit another crime.” Merchan ran over the Sixth Amendment, which states: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right … to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation.”
Merchan did not reveal this elusive underlying offense until he read jurors their pre-deliberation instructions — after closing arguments! In a genuine human-rights violation, neither Trump nor his attorneys knew precisely which law he allegedly violated nor how to disprove that accusation.
Contravening the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, the guiding doctrines of Federalism and Separation of Powers, and an April 27, 2023 Memorandum of Understanding between the U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Election Commission, Merchan let Bragg exceed his jurisdiction and adjudicate federal-campaign finance law in a New York courtroom. The DOJ and FEC, respectively, maintain “exclusive jurisdiction” to enforce criminal and civil statutes related to federal campaign finance. In this realm, Merchan and Bragg are more powerless than kittens.
As former prosecutor and CNN legal analyst Elie Honig explained in New York magazine: “In fact, no state prosecutor — in New York, or Wyoming, or anywhere has ever charged federal election laws as direct or predicate crime, against anyone, for anything. None. Ever.”
Merchan likewise stomped his jackboots onto the Constitution’s Supremacy and Separation of Powers clauses when he instructed a Manhattan jury to consider Trump’s guilt or innocence under the U.S. Tax Code. Only federal juries may do so.
Merchan hammered the SixthAmendment’s Accusation Clause, the 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Ramos v. Louisiana when he let jurors convict Trump without unanimously agreeing that he violated any single crime. Instead, Merchan unconstitutionally let jurors pick and choose from a menu of possible offenses. As he instructed them:
Although you must conclude unanimously that the defendant conspired to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means, you need not be unanimous as to what those unlawful means were.
Merchan deviously deployed the loaded word “conspired,” even though Bragg did not indict Trump for conspiracy.
Here is Chef Merchan’s Unlawful Means Menu:
“Violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act.” Never mind that DOJ and FEC already had chosen not to prosecute Trump over Stormy Daniels and “hush money.” Also, as previously mentioned, county D.A. Bragg and state Judge Merchan have no role in federal election-law violations.
“Falsification of other business records.” As George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley explained in The Hill, “The jury (or some jurors, at least) could find that some documents were falsified as an unlawful means of falsifying other documents.” Turley called this “a maddeningly circular theory.”
“Violation of tax laws.” I was in Merchan’s courtroom on Tuesday for defense attorney Todd Blanche’s entire closing argument and the first two hours of prosecutor Joshua Steinglass’s nearly six-hour summation. I did not hear the word “tax” even once. Prosecutors produced no evidence of Trump’s involvement in any tax crime. And yet there it was, part of Merchan’s crime buffet from which jurors could choose their favorite “unlawful means” to defibrillate Bragg’s dead misdemeanors into live felonies. Once again, Bragg and Merchan have zero authority to address federal tax law. That is why God created U.S. Attorneys.
Merchan’s crime cafeteria obliterated 657 years of jury unanimity, a core Anglo-American common-law principle since 1367. As Professor Turley observed, Merchan’s recipe would have let four jurors find Trump guilty of election offenses, four of faking records, and four more of tax crimes. Neither a dozen jurors nor even half that number could convict Trump of any single “unlawful means.” Unanimity? Not even semi-unanimity!
Merchan permitted wildly irrelevant testimony. Stormy Daniels went on and on about Trump’s Dopp kit, his bathrobe, underwear, and other racy tidbits — none of which was illegal nor pertinent to allegedly bogus business records. Merchan let Daniels slime Trump for hours. While this taught jurors zilch about allegedly cooked books, it might have given them the heebie-jeebies. That surely was the point.
Sucker-punching Trump’s rights under the Sixth Amendment’s Compulsory Process Clause, Merchan prohibited highly relevant defense testimony. Trump’s attorneys planned to present former Federal Election Commission Chairman Bradley Smith as an expert witness. Smith could have detailed election law and explained that non-disclosure agreements are perfectly legal, paying people to sign them is totally lawful, and the National Enquirer’s so-called “catch-and-kill” journalism might be lurid, but it’s legal. Most important, the FEC decided not to prosecute Trump over Stormy Daniels’ “hush money.” Smith’s testimony would have cremated Bragg’s case. So, Merchan barred Smith from the witness stand.
Throughout these outrages, Merchan’s overly broad gag order treated Trump’s First Amendment free speech rights with a machete rather than the scalpel that, for instance, would have justified shielding jurors’ identities. Merchan simultaneously violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause by gagging Trump but letting Michael Cohen, Stormy Daniels, and other parties to this case babble on at will.
These and other assaults on common sense, basic decency, legal norms, due process, federal statutes, and the U.S. Constitution all confirm that Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg rigged the case against Donald J. Trump. Even worse, Judge Juan Merchan assisted Bragg, not by putting his thumb or even his gavel on the scales of justice. Instead, Merchan brazenly lowered an anvil onto the Guilty side of that scale.
Before the Democrat lawfare machine turns this country into the United States of Venezuela, a jury of 161 million American voters should deliberate over the next five months and then announce their collective national verdict:
Donald J. Trump is Not Guilty and ready to govern.
Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor.
READ MORE from Deroy Murdock:
In Sum, Trump’s Defense Focuses on Accounting, Prosecution Obsesses Over Adultery
The Libertarian Case for Donald J. Trump
Biden Has a New Home for the Jews: Under the Bus
The post Judge Merchan Is a Hoodlum in Black Robes appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.
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