Politics – The Daily Signal

‘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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Politics – The Daily Signal

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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