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Dispatches from the Kangaroo Court of New York — 35 Comments

1. I suspect Trump’s remaining cases will collapse as the others before it. However, as Mark Steyn, who should know and often says, “The process is the punishment.”

   This quote seems to go back to:

   –Malcolm Freely, “The Process Is the Punishment: Handling Cases in a Lower Criminal Court” (1979)

2. I love Turley: “…people usually wait to get into Congress before they commit major felonies…”

3. he’s got a dry sense of humor, I think

4. But with Merchan sitting on the scales of justice and a D-home court jury, does any testimony matter except as campaign fodder for Biden?

   Either the fix is in or the fix is in.

5. Large pool of commentators here, I imagine some have served on a jury. I have. What I learned was that convicting someone in a trial is very difficult. The entire process is tilted toward the defense – rightfully so. My guess is that won’t matter here.

6. I don’t hear anyone talking about acquittal and at best a hung jury. Good possibility he will be convicted.

   Couple of dynamics, IMO. In my neck of the woods, there is so much plea bargaining that for a person to reach a trial, given the cost and time for the government, the person must be guilty. I think that’s the default view before a trial begins. Rather than viewing the trial through the lens of the prosecution proving the defendant guilty– the defense has as great an obligation to prove his client innocent, maybe more so.

   Yes, it turns the system on its head. I certainly hope I’m wrong. I’ve been called to serve on a jury several times and in every instance a plea deal is reached before the jury selection started.

   In this case, the prosecution has proven that Trump must be guilty of something. What isn’t that important– after all Trump is a threat to democracy itself. The jurors may be thinking that they will be saving democracy itself by convicting Trump.

7. if there was an actual crime, but the offenses seems to have been carried out by the prosecution witnesses, the rhyming factor resembles the stevens case, where the judge emmett sullivan, pretended not to notice the false evidence, presented by william allen, with full known of his NC-17 FBI Handler Mary Beth Kempner, who stayed in the Bureau, when the whistleblower was turfed out, Chad Joy I think was his name,

   after the conviction, which earned the dems the 59th or 60th seat, the judge all of a sudden, noticed shazaam there is some hanky panky going on, the McDonnell case was similar, both relied on Honest Services, one of these nebulous charges,
   reversed by the supreme court

8. Good grief! This is an insult to kangaroos.

9. Ignorant NYC Democrats elected Merchan. I expect the MSM, always pro-Dem, urged his election. In my book, Dems are stupid, corrupt, or both.

10. Johnathan Turley said something curious during a segment on Fox.

    Conversation turned to Brad Smith, former FEC official, being called as an expert witness and Turley said the judge might restrict his testimony because the domain of the judge is to say what the law is. Which explains why the thread of testimony– at least what I’ve heard from those in the courtroom, doesn’t lead to the crime Trump is accused of, though Turley does say the jury has been lead to think there has been a violation of election law– though only through insinuation.

    It seems obvious this will be overturned on appeal, but the damage is done– so it’s a win for the leftists.

    Cohen says Trump should be jailed for following his advice: Turley

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4St5qomFYK8

11. Lawrence O’Donnell defended Cohen, saying that Cohen thought he was entitled to the money because his bonus wasn’t big enough.

    Here’s how he covered “Stormy Daniels” appearance last week:

    “The loose fitting plain black clothing draping from her shoulders to her toes suggested the modesty of a nun.”

    “The makeup was minimal the way she and the other moms in her neighborhood might look when shopping at the local grocery store.”

    “The long blonde hair held up with a clip at the back of her head the way it might be in a utilitarian way while she was doing dishes.”

12. The real scandal isn’t that Merchan donated a few dollars to Biden, it’s all the people donating to Merchan via his daughter who is the cutout. It exactly analogous to the Biden/Hunter arrangement.

13. Cohen dropped the payment to the vendor from 50,000 to 20,000, but was there any invoice or contract? If there was one, then Cohen also messed up the vendor. Remember when there were vendors who claimed that Trump campaign did not pay their invoices?

    WRT the bonus…. unless there is an agreement, there is no requirement for a bonus to be a certain amount.

    I also read that he took the $20,000 out in cash over several days, presumably to avoid the bank reporting a transaction over $10,000. If you try to avoid reporting, can’t you get in trouble for that action? I think if you deposit 9,999 in cash, some banks will report the activity anyway.

    I wonder if Cohen ever had an IRS audit?

14. Re: Lawrence O’Donnell

    Abraxas:

    I had him mixed up with Lawrence O’Brien, who was national DNC chairman in 1968. Wondering that O’Brien was still alive.

    Lawrence O’Donnell has his Dem background as an aide and advisor to Senator Daniel Moynihan, but he is primarily an author and screenwriter. He even goes back to the “National Lampoon” and “The West Wing.”

    Hence, all the writerly detail in your above quote, stacking … ahem … Stormy’s Ordinary American Mom cred.

15. About spam emails – I thought that I had successfully unsubscribed to the emails from winred, but I have been getting a lot from “win.donaldjtrump.com” . Sometimes up to 10-15 spams a day.

    Four interesting points
    – the little icon that is with the email is the Trump/Pence 2020 logo
    – the committee name at the bottom is “Trump National Committee JFC Inc” . Of course, my brain went to normal naughty expression for JFC
    – I replied to the email and the email address changes to an “unsubscribe” address.
    – you can go to “donaldjtrump.com” website, but the “win.donaldjtrump.com” comes back with an error.

    I hope that takes care of the spam issue…

16. I knew this case was incredibly weak from the beginning but it has turned out much worse than I thought. It’s hard to believe that anyone thought that having Michael Cohen as your star witness was a good idea. Of course this jury may very well convict Trump anyway but I imagine they would have done so regardless of what witnesses were called.

    I just thought that for as long as Trump has been in business, they could have done a much better job at framing him than this. We shall see if there are any jurors who care about the law more than they care about getting Trump.

17. It’s all so transparently political vengeance. You have to be a biased ideologue to not see it. And that was Bragg, and company’s mistake. They may still get a conviction, but IMO, it will backfire – Big Time.

    Here’s a little ad for Trump. Pass it on:
    https://ak2.rmbl.ws/s8/2/z/K/t/1/zKt1q.caa.mp4?b=1&u=ummtf

18. Thanks JJ. That made my day!

19. Not quite sure that’s the metaphor he should want to project, though…

20. I recall reading at one point that two corporate lawyers were seated on the jury. Did anyone else hear that? If so, those individuals are at least going to recognize that they’ve been witness to a farce.

21. Totally clear on what the strategy is for those prosecuting Trump.
    The decision on Trump’s guilt or innocence was made well before the trial began.
    He will be found guilty, Trump will appeal and it’s likely Trump will prevail on appeal.
    But the appeal decision will occur well after the presidential election, allowing the Democrats to claim during the presidential campaign that Trump was legally convicted of wrong doing and is felon.

    When Alan Dershowitz – an almost flaming liberal if there was one – calls the entire case a sham, you know the fix is in.
    I say “almost” flaming liberal re: Dershowitz because he adheres to the principles of the US Constitution and actually admires that document. A real flaming liberal has contempt for the Constitution because it limits their totalitarian instincts.

22. It seems Richard Rich is alive and well in NYC
    or words to that effect!

23. https://donsurber.substack.com/p/maybe-trump-knows-what-hes-doing

    You what a sham this has proven to be are you embarassed of course not mr aluminium you are incapable of being embarassed

    After the sham that jack smith almost got away with after this colangelo production

24. This is right of the communist playbook.
    “We do not have time to play at “oppositions” at “conferences.” We will keep our political opponents… whether open or disguised as “nonparty,” in PRISON.” ~ Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

25. Ignorant NYC Democrats elected Merchan.

    You can just say “NYC Democrats”.

26. I haven’t heard from anyone about this exchange between Merchan and witness Costello. Costello refutes much of Cohen’s testimony (or just reinforces exactly how much of a liar Cohen is).

    BREAKING: Judge Merchan LOSES IT & SHOUTS at Trump Defense Witness in Trial Today!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaUoygptyxM

27. I just heard that defense had rested without calling Trump to testify – good. Maybe the Costello fiasco wised them up? Pissing off the judge – not a great move.

28. Ray Van Dune:

    The judge was ruling in favor of the prosecution over and over on similar issues to those he had ruled against when raised by the defense. Costello was a disaster for Cohen and the biased judge. The judge went ballistic because Costello rolled his eyes. This judge would have been angry at ANY witness who undermined the prosecution’s case. See this ,

    The defense decided long ago not to call Trump to the stand.

29. Sounds like ol’ Merchan is under a lot of “pressure”. Neo likes A Man for All Seasons and so do I. The pressure thingy is from More’s interview with Woolsey portrayed by Welles.

30. @ huxley

    “I had him mixed up with Lawrence O’Brien, who was national DNC chairman in 1968.”

    Throw in Kennedy aide Ken O’Donnell and it’s very confusing. Lawrence O’Donnell went to St. Sebastian’s, the Catholic school that played Groton, St. Paul’s and other exclusive prep schools, and then on to Harvard, so he’s always been full of himself. He worked for Daniel Moynihan, who had a reputation for being a relatively moderate Democrat, but he has described himself as an extreme left socialist.

    In a 2005 interview, O’Donnell called himself a “practical European socialist”. O’Donnell also declared himself a “socialist” on the November 6, 2010, Morning Joe show, stating: “I am not a progressive. I am not a liberal who is so afraid of the word that I had to change my name to ‘progressive’. Liberals amuse me. I am a socialist. I live to the extreme left, the extreme left of you mere liberals.” On the August 1, 2011, episode of The Last Word, O’Donnell further explained: “I have been calling myself a socialist ever since I first read the definition of socialism in the first economics class I took in college”

31. The problem is, there is a 100% chance trump will get convicted of a felony and sentenced to prison. Before he can have this verdict appealed in a fair(er) setting, he will be stricken from the ballot by the RNC and if the dems in congress have its way, will have his secret security terminated before he goes to jail, meaning execution is almost guaranteed.

    So not only will he be not running for president in a week’s time, he won’t be alive to see Michelle Obama elected president.

32. More subterfuge

    https://x.com/julie_kelly2/status/1792969008657948733

33. https://www.declassified.live/p/fbi-authorized-use-of-deadly-force?r=4yy1i&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

    Link above is Julie Kelly’s write up of the X thread miguel has linked in the comment at 2:22, also just above. This seems to me to be a genuinely bombshell sort of story, one which I hope will obtain enough spread to gain resonance with Americans generally speaking.

34. sdferr:

    It is a bombshell of a story, but the left probably won’t cover it and most people will never know. Also, if it were covered, most Trump-haters would think it’s just fine and that the only problem is that Trump and/or his family weren’t wounded or killed.

35. I’m sad to say I think you’re quite right neo. And yet, y’know, hope springs, eh!?

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