Speaking during the Friday, January 3 broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “Hannity” program with guest host Jason Chaffetz, longtime legal analyst Alan Dershowitz and FNC legal analyst Gregg Jarrett sounded off on Manhattan Judge Juan Merchan’s decision in the sentencing scheduling for Trump in the “hush money” case.
As background, in the Friday ruling, Judge Merchan scheduled the sentencing for January 10, just days before he is to be inaugurated. In his ruling, Judge Merchan said, in part, that there is no legal impediment to sentencing the president-elect, writing, “[T]his Court recognizes the importance of considering and balancing the seemingly competing factors before it: ensuring that the Executive Branch is free to fully dispense the duties of the President and safeguard the interests of the Nation, unencumbered by pending criminal proceedings; to ensure that the Supreme Court’s ruling and the citizenry’s expectation be honored that all are equal and no one is above the law; and the importance of protecting the sanctity of a jury verdict.” He added, “This Court is simply not persuaded that the first factor outweighs the others at this stage of the proceeding, either on its own or in conjunction with the other Clayton factors.”
In any case, Jarrett, commenting on what he sees Judge Merchan’s motivations as being in this situation, said, “Judge Merchan is determined to stain Donald Trump with a label convicted felon. To do that though, he has to sentence him before inauguration. Otherwise he can’t really technically call him a convicted felon.”
Continuing, Jarrett then wen ton to add, noting what it appears that Merchan’s calculus is in scheduling sentencing as he did, “So, Merchan is dangling what he thinks is a tantalizing offer. Agree to be sentenced next Friday, Mr. Trump, and there will be no incarceration or probation or anything, complete discharge.”
Continuing, Jarrett noted that he doesn’t think Trump will rise to the bait cast for him by the seemingly biased judge, saying, “Well, I doubt that Donald Trump will bite, and he shouldn’t bite.” Continuing with his attack on the case, Jarrett further added, “He was found guilty by a biased jury of crimes that don’t even exist under the law.”
Jarrett then noted, commenting on the full sweep of apparent bias in the case, “He was all but framed by a politically driven DA who worked in concert with a hostile judge who was required to recuse himself but refused to do it. So this turned out to be a sham trial based on a convoluted, incoherent legal theory. As you point out, it was utterly absurd, was rife with reversible errors by the judge, and it will eventually get overturned.”
Dershowitz agreed with Jarrett’s general assessment and called the whole case “Stalinism,” saying, “This is the worst instance of Stalinism in my 60-year career. Stalin was told, ‘Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime.’ So Letitia James, the Democratic attorney general, and Alvin Bragg, the Democratic DA, tried to find a crime to convict Trump of.”
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He continued, noting that they then tried to just find a crime to get him, saying, “But they couldn’t, they couldn’t find the crime. They searched the books. They couldn’t find the crime, so they made one up out of whole cloth. A totally made-up case. If they can make up a case against Donald Trump, they can make it up against you too.”
Dershowitz added, “Now they’re trying to avoid him getting an appeal. One way of avoiding him getting an appeal was not sentencing him. Now they’re going to sentence him. There’s another possibility. The governor may pardon him. If the governor pardons him, then he still has the stigma of a conviction, and there’s a question about whether he can appeal if he’s been pardoned.”
Then, speculating on what Merchan and DA Bragg are thinking, he said, “They’re looking at every possible way of avoiding an appellate reversal because any decent appellate court, any decent appellate court, will reverse this conviction for a dozen different reasons. One, there was no crime. Two, there was immunity. Three, error after error after error. Four, recusal and disqualification. The worst criminal case in my memory. The worst.” Watch him here: