Attorney Alan Dershowitz on Friday criticized Judge Juan Merchan for telegraphing how he would sentence President-elect Donald Trump, an act that Dershowitz said influenced the U.S. Supreme Court not to block Trump’s sentencing.
The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected Trump’s effort to halt his sentencing. Merchan had indicated he would sentence Trump to an unconditional discharge, meaning no jail, fine or probation. Dershowitz, on “Kudlow,” said that if the justices hadn’t known Merchan’s plan, they would have stopped the sentencing.
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“I devised the term lawfare. I wrote about it in the late 1960s, and it’s become this horrible, horrible thing that has been used against American democracies. Of course New York suffers. Of course Trump won, but the ultimate loser is the American people,” Dershowitz said. “And what Judge Merchan did was so sleazy and so sneaky. He announced in advance that he wouldn’t sentence him to jail. Look, I’ve been doing this for 62 years. I have never had a judge tell me in advance what the sentence was going to be.”
“In fact when I bring my clients to the courtroom for sentencing, I have them bring their toothbrush because I never know whether they’re going home or going to the prison, but he did this purposely, in order to get the Supreme Court not to take the case now,” Dershowitz said. “And two of the justices fell for his ploy. They said, ‘Oh he’s not sentencing him to jail.’ They shouldn’t have known that. ‘He’s not sentencing him to jail so we’re not going to stop the case.’ This was worse than lawfare. This was an attempt to manipulate the legal system.”
According to the Supreme Court’s order, “the alleged evidentiary violations at President-Elect Trump’s state-court trial can be addressed in the ordinary course on appeal.”
“Second, the burden that sentencing will impose on the President-Elect’s responsibilities is relatively insubstantial in light of the trial court’s stated intent to impose a sentence of ‘unconditional discharge’ after a brief virtual hearing,” the order said.
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh would have granted Trump’s application to block his sentencing, according to the documents.
A Manhattan jury on May 30 found Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records pertaining to a $130,000 non-disclosure payment to former porn star Stormy Daniels.
Trump appeared virtually at the sentencing hearing, repeatedly characterizing the payment as a “legal expense,” and asserting he did not falsify business records.
After the sentencing, Trump posted on Truth Social that he will appeal the case.
“The real Jury, the American People, have spoken, by Re-Electing me with an overwhelming MANDATE in one of the most consequential Elections in History. As the American People have seen, this ‘case’ had no crime, no damages, no proof, no facts, no Law, only a highly conflicted Judge, a star witness who is a disbarred, disgraced, serial perjurer, and criminal Election Interference,” he wrote. “Today’s event was a despicable charade, and now that it is over, we will appeal this Hoax, which has no merit, and restore the trust of Americans in our once great System of Justice. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
(Featured Image Media Credit: Screenshot/Rumble/Fox Business)
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