‘SHAM’: House Speaker Johnson Condemns Trial of Trump as ‘Politically Motivated’

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., in New York on Tuesday, condemned the so-called hush-money criminal trial of former President Donald Trump.

Johnson blasted the trial as a “sham” and said that it’s being used to manipulate the 2024 presidential election.

I’m disgusted by what’s happening in the sham trial against President Trump.

The American people can see it’s politically motivated.

Their star witness, Michael Cohen, is a known liar who is clearly on a mission for personal revenge. pic.twitter.com/dub4dyu91s

— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) May 14, 2024

“I’m an attorney. I’m a former litigator myself. I’m disgusted by what is happening here,” the Louisiana lawmaker said. “What is being done here is being done to our entire system of justice overall.”

Johnson said the American people are “losing faith” in the U.S. justice system and our institutions because they see them being “abused.”

The House speaker said the facts in Trump’s case are important, as they always are in a trial. The former president’s actions were “previously reviewed, and no charges were filed. Why is that?” Johnson asked rhetorically.

“Because there’s no crime here,” he said, answering his own question.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg started up this case eight years after the crime was allegedly committed, Johnson said, because “it’s painfully obvious, we’re six months out from an election day, and that’s the reason they brought these charges here and across the country.”

Johnson noted that the legal officials in this case are all partisan Democrats.

“What we’ve got here is a partisan Democrat district attorney. We have a [President Joe] Biden donor judge, and we have an [assistant district attorney] who was recently a top official at the Department of Justice, Biden’s DOJ, and recently received over $10,000 in payments from the Democratic National Committee,” he said.

Bragg, who brought the charges against Trump, also is a Democrat.

Johnson said the “star witness” in the Trump trial, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, is simply out for retribution.

Cohen is “clearly on a mission for personal revenge,” the Louisiana Republican said, adding that Cohen is known to be a witness who “has had trouble with the truth.”

Cohen admitted to lying to Congress in 2017, which was among the crimes that led to his disbarment.

“There’s nothing he presents here that should be given any weight at all by a jury and certainly not by this judge,” Johnson said.

The charge against Trump is falsification of business records, he said, “but I think everyone knows that he is not the bookkeeper of his company.”

The House speaker said Trump is “innocent” in the case and that “anyone with common sense can see what’s happening here.”

On top of everything else, Johnson said, the court has issued a gag order against Trump, which deprives the former president of his right to free speech during an election campaign. The whole trial represents a clear case where the judicial system has been weaponized against Trump, he said, and is punishing one presidential nominee while providing “cover” for another.

“The American people are not going to let this stand,” Johnson said. “Election Day cannot get here soon enough, and we will continue to shine a light on all of this in Congress because we have that constitutional responsibility.”

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Could a Manhattan Jury Acquit Trump?

Having served on three Manhattan juries, I would not be surprised if the 12 men and women hearing New York v. Donald J. Trump acquit him of all charges.

During two civil actions and one criminal case, my fellow jurors were serious, professional, and movingly civic-minded. A quiet, solemn patriotism infused our deliberations. Several jurors said that we should respect the justice system because, someday, we might need it to respect us.

My first case was a medical-malpractice lawsuit involving a botched abortion. We empathized with a woman wounded by her doctors, but her lawyer did not prove negligence. So, we backed her physicians.

“But we’ve got to give her something,” one juror insisted.

Others instantly rebuked him.

“That’s not how it works!” one said. “I feel sorry for her, too,” another admitted. “But her lawyer never made her case.”

So, we sent the plaintiff home without a penny.

Next, we deliberated intensely for almost three days before concluding that a Harlem drug counselor never demonstrated his defamation-of-character claim against his employers. My sympathetic pleas went unheeded, and he left empty-handed.

Finally, in her closing argument, a criminal prosecutor displayed a CD-ROM of a police dispatcher’s “Be on the lookout” announcement after an armed robbery. When we asked the judge to play that recording, he told us that it was not in evidence. 

Disgusted by this prosecutorial deception, we instantly and angrily acquitted the defendants. Minutes later, as foreman, I proudly announced our verdict in court.

These three cases confirm that Manhattan juries are sober and perfectly capable of fairness.

That is good news for Trump.

A jury of levelheaded Manhattanites would appreciate these facts that verify the profound vacuity and fundamental unfairness of District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s “case” against Trump:

• An April 25, 2023, U.S. Justice Department Memorandum of Understanding with the Federal Election Commission leaves Bragg powerless to prosecute this matter. “The Department has exclusive jurisdiction over criminal enforcement of the federal campaign finance laws,” the memorandum states.

“The Commission has exclusive jurisdiction over civil enforcement,” the memo says.

Nowhere does this federal rule grant local prosecutors authority to enforce federal election laws. Thus, Bragg’s case is a shack built atop a cloud of helium. 

• Bragg indicted Trump on April 4, 2023, four months after the statute of limitations expired on the corresponding Class E felonies.

• Bragg skirted the statute of limitations by claiming that Trump falsified business records to commit a second violation. After two weeks of this trial, that second crime remains a mystery.

• Prosecutors described a “catch-and-kill scheme” through which the National Enquirer bought the rights to stories that might embarrass Trump and then buried them. Rather than a plot to influence the 2020 election, the Enquirer routinely caught and killed stories about Trump—and other newsmakers. More important, “catch and kill” might be dodgy, but it is not illegal.

• Former nude thespian Stormy Daniels signed a nondisclosure agreement promising quietude about consensual sex that Trump and, at various times, Daniels herself deny ever sharing. NDAs are perfectly legal. I have signed at least three (while dressed), and nondisclosure language has appeared in numerous contracts I have endorsed. Confidential out-of-court settlements operate similarly and legally.

• Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen paid Daniels to clam up about her alleged intimacy with Trump. Again, sex or no sex, it is legal to pay people to ignore journalists (although buying silence before law enforcement is obstruction of justice). 

• Trump’s checks allegedly reimbursed Cohen for payments to Daniels. It is perfectly legal for a client to repay his attorney funds advanced in a lawful transaction.

• Bragg claims that Trump should have paid for this private matter with campaign cash. That would have been illegal. Instead, Trump legally used his own money.

• Trump faces 34 counts of alleged falsification of business records because his bookkeepers posted ledger entries for checks to Cohen as “legal expenses.” Would Bragg prefer false descriptions like “plumbing supplies” or “marble tiles”? Trump faces prison for reporting legal expenses as “legal expenses,” which is legal.

With 48% of registered voters telling Reuters-Ipsos last month that Trump’s Kafkaesque cases are “excessive and politically motivated” (41% disagree) even a Manhattan jury could scrap Bragg’s contraption.

My memories of jury duty, including within the Stalinesque building in which Trump is being persecuted, tell me that deliberating jurors could think, “I won’t vote for Trump. But I cannot convict him beyond a reasonable doubt in a shaky case about actions that are lurid, but legal.”

If just one juror agrees, this case will end with a hung jury. A second trial would be unlikely before Election Day.

And if “lurid, but legal” reflects the opinions of 12 of my fellow Manhattanites—who tend to be tough, but fair—then Trump will be acquitted on all charges and go back to where he belongs: The campaign trail.

The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.

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Nightmares at Chicago Universities Set Stage for Nuclear Democrat Convention

As police finally clear the anti-Israel encampment at the University of Chicago, and Northwestern University appeases its protesting occupiers, the Democratic National Convention set for August in the Windy City ticks ever closer. 

Unsatiated protesters may have been cleared from some of their camps at college campuses, but the more lucrative target of national Democrats’ gathering to renominate President Joe Biden has many worried that the protests may only be getting started.

Although the two Chicago universities caved weakly to the strange demands of the anti-Israel protesters, Biden has not been well-received by the pro-Hamas youth.

The agitators’ slapping Biden with the nickname “Genocide Joe” and their joining pro-Israel protesters at UCLA and University of Alabama in chants of “F— Joe Biden” led many to suspect that stormy weather is in store for a left-wing political convention that is little more than three months away.

Biden’s unpopularity with radical groups on the political and cultural Left has been largely attributed to his attempt to “split the baby” by backing Israel in its war against Hamas while criticizing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s methods, placing conditions on aid to America’s biggest Middle Eastern ally, and sympathizing with anti-Israel and pro-Hamas protesters.

Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel on Oct. 7, slaughtering 1,200, torturing or raping many first, and taking over 200 hostages. Ever since, the Israeli military has targeted the adjacent Gaza Strip—where Hamas is the elected government and uses civilians as shields—with the goal of “eradicating” the terrorist group.

The Biden administration has warned Israel not to invade Rafah, the southern region of the Gaza Strip bordering Egypt, where the last four regiments of Hamas are believed to hold dozens of hostages, including five American citizens.

Anti-Israel protesters have set up encampments on public and private university campuses around the nation, often trespassing and vandalizing on campus as well as  intimidating, obstructing, and entrapping Jewish students. 

Although the published rationale for these protests varies from encampment to encampment, most center on the rage of left-wing students that their university is doing business with businesses that do business with (or appear to do business with) Israel.

Protesters at the University of Chicago and Northwestern demanded full-ride scholarships for Palestinian students, HIV tests, medical supplies for treating combat wounds, dental dams, Plan B, and other contraceptives.

Northwestern reportedly “paid off” some protesters by agreeing to give scholarships to five Palestinian students and special pay to Palestinian staff for two years. School administrators also agreed to reestablish an Advisory Committee on Investment Responsibility that would allow students and staff to shame the university officially for accepting “Israeli or Israel-adjacent endowments,” and to allow protesters to continue their encampment until at least June 1.

Now Northwestern is facing a lawsuit and two civil rights complaints over concessions to the leaders of the  anti-Israel encampments. The plaintiffs claim that Northwestern failed to “fulfill a modest core promise” to students that all “student peers and faculty will be governed by rules” by looking the other way when certain groups participated in antisemitic harassment.

Although the encampment at the University of Chicago was cleared by police Tuesday morning, students and faculty members have proclaimed their willingness to be arrested while “protesting for Palestine.”

Given the inflammatory support for these anti-Israel protests from far-left House Democrats such as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Andre Carson of Indiana, and Pramila Jayapal of Washington, it’s unlikely that organizers of the Democratic National Convention would be able to discourage these anti-Israel protesters from setting up camp outside United Center for the duration of the convention Aug. 19 to 22.

One need not look back too far to recall the upheaval at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, when Vietnam War protesters tangled with police was upheaved by protesters against the Vietnam War. 

At the time, 56 years ago, Illinois Gov. Samuel Shapiro, a Democrat, honored a request from Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, also a Democrat, to deploy the Illinois National Guard to help provide convention security. It is unlikely that today’s mayor, Democrat Brandon Johnson, would ask for the Guard to be deployed.

In a press conference Friday, Johnson told reporters that “individuals who wish to demonstrate … work within parameters.” But the mayor declined to outline what “parameters” meant, or whether he would request police or Guard assistance.

If such a protest turned out to be as violent as the “Summer of Love” in 2020, in which entire city blocks were burned by Black Lives Matter-inspired rioters, then this Democratic National Convention could turn very nasty very quickly.

Last month, representatives of 75 organizations gathered in Chicago to plan disruptions at August’s convention.

Joe Iosbaker, a leader of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, told a screaming crowd: “This is Chicago, [expletive] it, we’ve got to give them a 1968 kind of welcome!”

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Trump Faces 34 Felonies at Trial. But Was There a Crime?

I can’t tell you how many people I know who do not like former President Donald Trump yet nonetheless smell prosecutorial overreach in Manhattan.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has charged the former president with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Trump has pleaded not guilty.

The case began with Michael Cohen, Trump’s onetime fixer, making a “hush money” payment to the former adult film actress known as Stormy Daniels to keep her from revealing information about an alleged sexual relationship with Trump in 2006. Bragg used the fact that Cohen paid $130,000 to Daniels in 2016, when Trump was running for president, as a pretext to turn a moldy misdemeanor offense into a felony.

But is it even illegal? This trial showcases something rich men and big corporations have been doing for years—paying off mistresses or wronged staffers with cash settlements with little public scrutiny, thanks to nondisclosure agreements.

I don’t like it, but it’s not a crime.

On Tuesday, former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker testified that during a 2015 meeting in Trump Tower, he told Trump, Cohen, and campaign stalwart Hope Hicks that he wanted to help the Trump campaign, if behind the scenes.

What followed was “catch and kill,” the term for the scheme of paying to get dirt on a public figure, then killing the story, as happened with another alleged Trump gal pal, Karen McDougal. The National Enquirer paid her $150,000 for a story that never ran.

Trump has denied that anything extramarital occurred with McDougal and Daniels. But as Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, told CNN, “You don’t pay someone $130,000 not to have sex with you.”

Back to Cohen. He’s a flawed witness to be sure, who in 2018 pleaded guilty to charges that included tax evasion and lying to Congress when he testified about Trump, his former master. Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison.

Then, last year, Cohen claimed that he lied when he admitted to tax evasion. A more careful prosecutor would not hang a case on an accomplished liar.

Given his capacity for self-pity and self-sabotage, it’s no surprise that Trump told reporters after the second day of trial, “I’m not allowed to defend myself.”

Trump also continued to throw shade at Judge Juan Merchan, whose gag order, Trump maintained, robbed him of his “right to free speech.” Trump also offered that Merchan “should recuse himself.”

Pecker testified that he was glad to help by running “positive stories about Mr. Trump,” as well as negative stories about his campaign rivals. I’m guessing many Big Media hotshots feel the same way—about President Joe Biden.

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The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.

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