Corrupt and biased Judge Juan Merchan has so far refused to release the jury instructions to the public after Bragg’s prosecutors and Trump’s attorneys sparred over the order during a conference earlier this week.
Jury instructions can make or break a case for either side.
No doubt Judge Merchan’s jury instructions “will be horrendously poisonous” Mark Levin said earlier this week.
Juan Merchan will go down in history as one of the most appallingly dishonest and disgraceful judges ever. It is now clear why he was assigned the Bragg case. The fix was in long before the trial began. And he’s not done. The jury instructions will be horrendously poisonous.…
— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) May 21, 2024
Judge Merchan however sided with Bragg’s prosecutors and ruled the jury does NOT need to unanimously agree on the “predicate” crime Trump committed.
“In other words: If some jurors believe that Trump falsified business documents solely to cover up a tax crime, while others believe that he falsified business documents solely to cover up an election crime, the jury can still convict Trump on the felony-level falsifying-documents charges, despite disagreeing on the predicate crimes.” Politico’s Josh Gerstein wrote.
Alvin Bragg indicted Trump in April 2023 on 34 felony counts related to ‘hush payments’ he made to Stormy Daniels.
Trump was accused of paying porn star Stormy Daniels, AKA, Stephanie Clifford, ‘hush payments’ through his then-attorney Michael Cohen in a scheme to silence her and stop the story about their alleged affair from being published in the National Enquirer.
The payments were made through internal business records – there was no tax deduction taken and there was no obligation to file it with the FEC, according to Trump attorney Joe Tacopina.
Alvin Bragg didn’t explain what exactly he wanted to convict Trump of in the charging documents. Bragg still has not clearly stated the predicate crimes. He is expected to state three possible predicate crimes during next Tuesday’s closing arguments: a tax crime and violations of state or federal election law.
The judge made it easier for Trump to be convicted because the jurors don’t have to unanimously agree on what “predicate” crime Trump supposedly committed.
Far-left Politico reported:
To find Trump guilty of felony-level falsification of business documents, the jury must unanimously find that Trump falsified the documents in order to commit or conceal a separate crime. But the jurors do not all have to agree on what that separate crime was, Justice Juan Merchan ruled.
Trump’s defense argued that, to issue a felony-level conviction, all jurors should be required to agree on the “predicate” crime.
Prosecutors initially laid out four possible predicate crimes, one of which the judge ruled out before trial. The remaining possibilities are a tax crime and violations of state or federal election law.
Defense lawyer Emil Bove argued that jurors should have to agree on a single predicate offense. But prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said the law doesn’t require that.
“The importance of the case is not a basis for deviating from the standard application of the law,” Colangelo said. “There’s no reason to rewrite the law for this case.”
Merchan agreed with the prosecution and said he won’t impose the requirement the defense requested.
Attorney and podcast host Megyn Kelly discussed Judge Merchan’s refusal to release the jury instructions with legal experts Andy McCarthy and Phil Holloway.
The jurors were given jury instructions on Thursday and they will be exposed to outside influence during the holiday weekend while they are NOT sequestered.
Closing arguments for Alvin Bragg’s ‘hush money’ case against Trump begins next week after the Memorial Day holiday weekend.
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