Following the issuance jury instructions from Judge Juan Merchan in the “hush money” trial, former President Donald Trump spoke to reporters and, appearing shocked and furious, said that with the instructions given to the jury, the trial was so tilted against him that even Mother Theresa wouldn’t be able to overcome the charges and bias.
As background, there was a large degree of confusion and unhappiness with the jury instructions. For examp. law professor and legal expert Jonathan Turley, describing the jury instructions given by Judge Merchan in a series of posts on X, wrote, “Judge Merchan is giving the standard instruction that they can reach inferences based on facts such as inferring that it rained from seeing people in raincoats. It is a rather quaint instruction after Merchan allowed the prosecutors to state as a “fact” that federal election violations occurred in this case. There is no such violation in this case, but Merchan did nothing to correct the erroneous impression. To carry forward the analogy, Steinglass was just yelling at the jury that there was a virtual hurricane on a perfectly sunny day but the judge remained entirely silent.”
Also causing an issue was that Judge Merchan also told the jury, CNN reports, “Although you must conclude unanimously that the defendant conspired to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means, you need not be unanimous as to what those unlawful means were. In determining whether the defendant conspired to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means, you may consider the following: (1) violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act otherwise known as FECA; (2) the falsification of other business records; or (3) violation of tax laws.”
Trump apparently misunderstood that, as he wrote on Truth Social, “IT IS RIDICULOUS, UNCONSTITUTIONAL, AND UNAMERICAN that the highly Conflicted, Radical Left Judge is not requiring a unanimous decision on the fake charges against me brought by Soros backed D.A. Alvin Bragg. A THIRD WORLD ELECTION INTERFERENCE HOAX!”
That understanding of the jury instructions appears to have been false, though there was a large amount of misunderstanding about what Judge Merchan meant. According to CNN, he did not mean that they do not have to be unanimous as to guilt, but rather “jurors don’t have to unanimously agree on which particular “unlawful means” Trump may have used; they can find him guilty as long as they unanimously agree that Trump used some unlawful means.”
In any case, Trump, speaking about the jury instructions and the state of the case to the press, said, “Mother Teresa could not beat these charges, but we’ll see. We’ll see how we do. It’s a very disgraceful situation.” Continuing, he blasted the whole trial and situation as “rigged,” saying, “These charges are rigged. The whole thing is rigged.”
He then vowed to take back the country, saying, “We’re going to take back our country from these fascists and these thugs that are destroying us with inflation and with everything they do.” He continued, alleging that they are currently “allowing 15, 16, 17 million people into our country, totally unvetted, totally unchecked.”
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Then, vowing to correct the current state of things, Trump said, “We’re going to bring back our nation. November 5. Remember, most important day in the history of our country.” Then, ending with a reminder about what he thinks of the “hush money” trial and the bias of Judge Merchan, he said, “In the meantime, this trial is rigged,”