“I GET WHY YOU YOU ARE UPSET AT ME, BUT WHAT HAVE YOU GOT AGAINST THE HORSE I RODE IN ON?”– Breaking down the many reversible errors in the rigged trial of Donald J. Trump

Generally speaking, I respect all jury verdicts. Not the one convicting Trump, however. As a trial lawyer, I have NO respect for the outcome. However I am not upset at the jury, because the jurors were preordained to come in with a “guilty” verdict, given that they were the “riders”, and the problem was the “horse they rode in on”–starting with unconstitutional jury instructions hinting strongly that Trump was a criminal. These sneaky instructions were only talked about by the prosecutor, because under the weird way that New York does it, the Defense only speaks in closing argument BEFORE the prosecutor, who speaks last. (In most jurisdictions, the Prosecutor goes first, then the defense, then the Prosecution has final word, which is supposed to be restricted to what the Defense said in its rebuttal). Now the New York system can work fairly IF an impartial Judge and an honest prosecutor have informed the Defense in advance what charge the Defense is facing, and do not conspire—as happened here—to spin a case out of a theory heard FOR THE FIRST AND ONLY TIME from the prosecutor. Moreover, the jury heard tainted evidence that, in fairness, it should never have heard, and did NOT hear evidence that, in any fair trial, it would have heard.

Indeed, the reversible errors in this trial were so numerous that the Judge has to KNOW this verdict should be—and will be–reversed. That knowledge proves beyond a doubt that the single purpose of the trial was to allow Biden and his left-wing sycophants and handlers to label President Trump as a “convicted felon” during the campaign, and due process and the rule of law be damned. Since the inevitable reversal will come after the election, Judge Merchan and Alvin Bragg can give it a big shrug, hoping the conviction itself will sway enough low information voters to keep the doddering old fool pretending to run the country up there for another four years, enough time to completely finish the job of wrecking the country with war, inflation, and left-wing lunacy.

Now: on September 6, Judge Merchan, perhaps realizing that sentencing Trump to jail on these transparently contrived charges would be likelier to help him than hurt him, moved the sentencing date to November 26, 2024, after the election. But, of course, you will still hear people sneer that Trump is a “convicted felon” in what lawyers call the “Zombie case”–one pieced together out of contrived crimes to “get Trump”. How did they do it?

Alas, explaining what happened here requires getting “down into the weeds” a bit more that I would like, but given the gigantically contrived nature of the case, it’s inevitable. Since there are so many errors, I am just going to pick one from each phase of the trial, working from end (of the Court’s case) to the beginning of the indictment.

Let’s start with the rigged jury instructions. Out of many glaring errors in the 58 pages, the biggest was allowing a non unanimous verdict on key element of the “crime”. The jury was allowed to pick one of three theories, theories advanced for the FIRST TIME and explained by the prosecutor, theories that the defense has not alerted about because of the weird system of the New York system that allows a biased judge to hook up with a dirty prosecutor and sneak in something that should have been in the trial. (and was not). One of those theories? A supposed federal election campaign violation, over which New York clearly has no jurisdiction.

Backing up to the next phase, the Judge excluded most testimony of a key Defense witness, Brad Smith. the former FEC Commissioner, who would have clearly explained that Trump did not violate federal law (in fact, if he HAD called payments for invoices as legal services “campaign expenses”, he would have been on really shaky ground). Judge Merchan repeatedly sustained unbelievably crooked objections to keep exculpatory evidence out of the trial, then blew up at the Defense witness in front of the jury. Merchan followed his tantrum by sending the press out of the room and REALLY excoriating Smith and threatening to strike his testimony. This action was the opposite of classy, and was horribly prejudicial. Merchan’s reasoning was that the “judge instructs on the law” ignoring that he has NO right to instruct the jury on this federal charge (and didn’t, leaving the jury to infer whatever it chose), and that the witness on the stand knew 100 times more about the technical aspects of a campaign finance violation than Merchan ever will.

Moving back in the trial: time to fly into the “storm”. Let’s ignore that fact that the Stormy Daniels story was already out, and that anyone who would have voted on it already knew and had factored it in. We can also ignore, for the nonce, the fact that these payments were made after the election was over, while Trump was in the White House running the government and signing huge piles of checks thrust in front of him by his aides. Let’s just say that the restrictions on this witness were inexcusable and meant to rig the decision, given what went before.

What went before? Let’s back up to the testimony of Michael Cohen and the fact that the Prosecution was able to bring out that he “pleaded guilty” to federal election campaign violation, And some knew that there was an “unindicted co-conspirator”. Sounds pretty damning, right? Well, it does seem that way, and that is the reason that the judge allowed the Prosecution to sneak in the case, violating numerous due process issues supposed to protect the innocent. Why? To start with, the case against Cohen was never PROVEN in court, and there almost certainly was NOT a violation. Cohen pleaded to something he did not do under enormous pressure (essentially, they were threatening to lock him up for decades and maybe imprison his wife, to boot. Don’t think that can happen in America? Think again.) Even if there were a conviction, Cohen was the one who made the payments to Clifford and billed the President, whose assistants were merely following the “legal advice” of Cohen in matching the check memorandum to the invoice. And anyone thinking President Trump did his own books or told his bookkeepers how to code the payment is smoking a particularly strong brand of weed.

Indeed, backing up to the next phase, look at the supposed “crime” itself, supposedly wrong accounting entries that matched invoices, entries made not by the Defendant but someone else and AFTER the event they supposedly influenced. Now, let’s ignore the fact that the only thing tying Trump to the “crime” was the testimony of Cohen, whom the Defense termed the “GLOAT”–the greatest liar of All Time–(personally, I would give the prize to Harris, who told us, repeatedly, that “the border is secure” and that Joe Biden is “sharp as a tack”, but no problem).

So: in sum: this judge decided to let “Stormy Daniels” aka Stephanie Clifford, an aging porn actress who has made tons of money off Trump but owes him half a million for a lawsuit she lost brought by felon Michael Avenatti, wax eloquently on the details of a single tryst from over a decade ago that had nothing to do with the case. (Actually, the Judge allowing this clearly inappropriate testimony was a red herring, meant to help hide the dirty tricks that would take place when the jury charge was written—but it is still reversible error.)

While I could give a lot more examples, as this case is riddled with reversible error glaringly evident to any competent trial attorney, let’s to back to the first one. Judge Merchan committed reversible error by even trying the case. He was an unelected judge hand-picked to skewer Trump. He unethically DONATED to an organization dedicated to stopping the Defendant which alone disqualifies him. His daughter made millions off Democrats and will make more millions off this verdict. Yet Merchan refused to recuse himself (clearly because he wanted to see himself as the toast of the left-wing cocktail circuit as the man who put his whole body on the scale to hang a faux felony on Trump).

And the scheme worked. The trial took place in a deeply blue district that hates the Defendant. (One liberal loftily informed me that 25% of the jury pool voted for Trump. Since each side gets an equal number of strikes, there is no way those voters would have been on the jury—just think about it). The whole case was based on a sneaky last minute hidden theory, testimony of a congenital liar, and testimony of a porn actress allowed to testify about sex acts over a decade old that are irrelevant. This is the most crooked, contrived, dishonest conviction I have ever seen. Rather than “respecting” the verdict, what I have for it is contempt. (That contempt is NOT for the Jury. I’m sticking to criticizing the horse they rode in on.) For the judge and prosecutor, I have even more contempt for betraying their oaths. This outrageous miscarriage of justice WILL be reversed, of course, but it should never have happened and it disgraces our legal system. Perhaps, rather than calling the many errors in the case the “horse the jury rode in on”, I should call it what it is. A giant load of horsecrap.

About the Author: Robert Croskery is a former Army Infantry Officer Lieutenant Colonel retired from US Special Operations Command, where, after mobilization, he deployed and worked in Strategic Plans. He is a trial attorney licensed to practice in Ohio, Kentucky, Florida, and Tennessee.