LOS ANGELES.–All the pressure to go to trial on various cases pending against 77-year-old President Donald Trump stem from Democrats and the press that think that if he’s not convicted between now and the election he’ll win a second term against 81-year-old President Joe Biden. All the rush to judgment by Democrats and the press reflects genuine concerns that Trump could win the presidency back on Nov. 5 and then pardon himself of any remaining criminal offenses. Democrats and the press accuse Trump legal team of delay tactics, a legal strategy to kick the can down the road as long as possible to avoid trial. When it comes to his upcoming hush money trial in Manhattan, Manhattan District Atty. Alvin Bragg and Judge Juan Merchan are ready to go on April 15, posing more problems for Trump’s legal team forced to start defending their famous client.
Instead of looking at the pressure for trial as a “rush to judgment,” Democrats and the press see the delays as Trump’s dilatory legal tactics, trying to delay trial anyway possible. Trump’s legal team doesn’t know how a jury of Trump’s peers would take Manhattan DA’s hush money case against Trump. It’s hard for DA Alvin Bragg to keep the trial relevant when it stemmed from an alleged 2006 incident that Trump has denied. When it comes to its relevance for the 2016 election, Bragg relies as his star witness on disbarred, disgraced, convicted felon, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen. Cohen plans to tell the jury he paid $130,000 to former adult film start Stormy Daniels AKA Susan Clifford, waiting until Trump eventually reimbursed him. Cohen told Bragg that Trump wrote off the payment as legal expenses, since the check was made out to Cohen.
Whatever the bookkeeping questions, Bragg decided to upgrade normally misdemeanor charges to Class 3 felonies to charge Trump Apr. 4, 2023 with 34 felonies. Since Bragg announced the charges, the case against Trump has been litigated 24/7 in the anti-Trump media, with a consensus of all news hosts and pundits that Trump was guilty as charged. Yet, now that that the trial is set by Merchan for April 15, he issued a gag order against Trump for saying anything about the prosecutors, witnesses or the judge. Yet Merchan gives no gag order on the Democrat media that denigrates Trump daily, insisting he’s guilty of all charges. So, how does Merchan reconcile a gag order on Trump without controlling Bragg or his team of prosecutors from making disparaging comments about the defendant? Merchan has already shown his personal bias against defendant Trump.
Instead of seeing Trump’s legal team as engaged in dilatory gamesmanship, why doesn’t the prosecution think that Trump and his legal team have a right to reciprocal discovery and adequate preparation time for trial? Listening, for example, to former lead Special Counsel Robert Mueller prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, you’d think Trump was guilty on all charges. He took the same attitude during his 22-month, $40 million investigation, ending in Trump’s March 23, 2019 acquittal. “There is a chance that he could evade justice by delaying justice,” said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who, during the four-year Russian hoax investigation, said he, himself, has proof collusion with the Kremlin. Schiff, like other partisan Democrats, wants to deny Trump his due process rights. If it were up to Weismmann and Schiff, Trump would have been locked up with the key thrown away.
Weissman and Schiff are frequently on Democrat-controlled cable and network TV shows denouncing Trump, proclaiming the overwhelming evidence to convict Trump of all charges, in all cases. Both hailed Judge Arthur Engoron’s Feb. 16, ruling ordering to pay the state of New York $454 million for illusory crimes of escalating and devaluing his real estate holdings over many years. Erdogan and New York State Atty. Gen. Letitia James can’t say who was damaged by Trump’s illusory fraud, claiming that he owed the taxpayers of New York. Yet Engoran, a partisan Democrat Judge, pulled his numbers out of thin air, saying Trump owned the state a whopping some of cash. James threatened, even though Trump had appealed the ruling, to start foreclosing on Trump’s real estate assets. Where’s the justice in two partisan bureaucrats trying to confiscate Trump’s wealth?
When it comes to throwing the book at Trump, Democrats and the press have no problem rushing to judgment and denying Trump his due process rights. Schiff and Weissmann think they know all the facts and have convicted Trump for years. Wesissmann couldn’t be more disingenuous, clearing Trump as lead prosecutor in the Mueller investigation but now piling on now that he’s retired from the Department of Justice. Watching Schiff run for U.S. Senate when he was Democrats chief architect of the fake Russian narrative against Trump is truly sickening. Schiff should have been tried for perjury many times over for all his lies about his evidence of Trump’s Russian collusion. “Most defendants do not want to go to trial,” Weissmann said. “They are trying to put that off as much as possible,” Weissmann said. With corruption like that, U.S. criminal justice system is in trouble.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
