Let Us Count The Ways Trump's Rights Were Violated By The NY Kangaroo Courts

The outrageous denial of due process that took place in Trump's NY criminal trial is beyond belief. Here's a list detailing how Trump's rights were violated.

What took place in Trump’s NY courtroom was a display of raw corrupt power like I’ve never seen before in all my years following legal trials throughout America. Judge Merchan makes the corrupt DC circuit judges look like amateurs when it comes to rigging trials.

Here’s an abbreviated list of reversible errors and civil rights violations that “Acting” Judge Merchan engaged in to rig the outcome of Trump’s criminal trial. Consider it a handy reference sheet for those who did not have the time to follow the trial as closely as I did. There were many more errors, but this list covers most of the major ones.

District Attorney Alvin Bragg publicly ran on a platform of prosecuting Trump.

In January 2021, while running for Manhattan D.A., Bragg described Donald Trump as a “rich old white man” who evaded accountability. This public admission of bias against Trump should have precluded Bragg from prosecuting Trump to begin with. This was a violation of Trump’s right to an impartial prosecution under his 14th amendment rights of equal protection and due process.

Lead Prosecutor Matthew B. Colangelo followed Trump around the country, changing jobs repeatedly, to lead cases against Trump, coming directly from the Biden controlled DoJ.

Colangelo actually quit his job as a US Attorney working for the DoJ in order to get on the Trump case in NY as a local prosecutor. This is a major demotion that Colangelo did willingly, which speaks to his enormous bias against Trump. Colangelo being allowed to join the case was a violation of Trump’s right to an impartial prosecution and shows the Biden administration’s direct involvement in the case.

Judge Juan Merchan, himself a Biden donor, had a first degree relative (his daughter) who was generating millions of dollars in donations for her business based on the case her father was presiding over.

Judge Merchan’s daughter, Loren Merchan, serves as the President of Authentic, a digital agency that promotes progressive causes and candidates. The agency claims they are directly involved with the Biden/Harris campaign, along with numerous other high profile Democrats. NY judicial conduct rules require a judge recuse themselves if there is a sixth degree conflict of interest. Judge Merchan actually allowed Loren’s clients to have direct access to the trial and afforded them special seating. Further, his donations to an anti-Trump political organizations violated NY judicial ethics rules. This violated Trump’s sixth and 14th amendment rights to an impartial trial.

“Acting” Judge Merchan was “randomly” assigned to the Trump records case, the Steve Bannon case and the Trump organization case - a mathematical impossibility.

Judge Merchan isn’t even an appointed judge, he’s an “acting” judge. An "acting" judge is a judge who temporarily serves in the absence or unavailability of the regularly appointed judge. He’s like a substitute teacher. Yet here he is, presiding over all of the most politically charged cases ever brought in NY state history.

If “they” can rig the judge, how hard do you think it would be for “them” to rig the jury pool? Inquiring minds would like to know, and apparently so do members of Congress.

If Merchan wasn’t randomly appointed, which he clearly wasn’t, this is also a violation of Trump’s due process rights.

Trump was denied a venue change from Manhattan, a city where 87% voted for Biden in the 2020 Presidential race.

Trump applied for and was denied a venue change out of Manhattan. Trump would likely have been acquitted, or the jury would have been hung, in any other borough besides Manhattan. Due to the fact that the prosecution can strike ten jurors in the same way the defense can, which is yet another unconstitutional violation of sixth amendment rights as far as I’m concerned, there was a virtual mathematical impossibility of Trump ever receiving an unbiased jury in Manhattan. If the prosecution can’t convince a set of jurors who are most favorable to the defendant in any case, they have no business bringing the case in the first place. This violated Trump’s sixth amendment right to an impartial trial.

Judge Merchan allowed clearly biased jurors to continue sitting on the jury even after highly prejudicial statements and actions by them were exposed.

One of the potential jurors attended a an anti-Trump rally, while claiming she was unbiased. Merchan forced the defense to waste one of their ten strikes to have her removed from the jury. Another juror said, “I don’t like his persona, how he presents himself in public” - of course, Merchan kept her on the jury after she claimed she could be unbiased. Keeping jurors like this on the jury violated Trump’s sixth amendment right to an impartial trial.

Judge Merchan denied the defense their right to question each prospective juror.

Normally during jury selection the defense is afforded the right to question each juror before they are dismissed from the jury pool, but not in Judge Merchan’s court room. Instead, Merchan allowed jurors to self-select themselves out of the jury pool en-mass by telling anyone who felt they couldn’t be impartial to leave. While this might seem reasonable, it prevented the defense from being able to highlight just how biased the jury pool was. The defense should have been allowed to go through dozens upon dozens of jurors individually exposing each one’s bias, which would have made the case for venue change on appeal far stronger. This violated Trump’s sixth amendment right to a fair and impartial jury and weakened Trump’s appeal prospects, violating his 14th amendment due process rights.

Judge Merchan gagged Trump, imposing a prior restraint of speech that dramatically hampered Trump’s ability to make his case in the court of public opinion.

It's unconstitutional to gag a defendant in virtually all cases. In 1971 the Supreme Court ruled in New York Times Co. v. United States that gag orders, viewed as form of prior restraint are presumptively unconstitutional. Also see Nebraska Press Ass'n v. Stuart. A lawsuit brought by a member of the press highlights the unconstitutionality of Trump’s gag order. This violated Trump’s first amendment right to free speech.

Trump’s council was not allowed to be notified of who the prosecution would call as a witness until the day before they were called.

Merchan ordered that the defense did not have to be notified of what order the prosecution intended to call their witnesses, making it very difficult for the defense to adequately prepare for trial. I believe this was an unconstitutional infringement of Trump’s due process rights, but this is not case law.

Unrelated highly prejudicial testimony by Daniels was allowed to be considered.

Basically all of Stormy Daniels testimony had nothing to do with campaign finance laws, tax laws or record keeping violations. It was solely brought in, over defense objections, to defame Trump and prejudice the jury. It served no other purpose. This kind of testimony violates Trump’s due process rights. This alone is grounds to have the entire case tossed.

Michael Cohen was allowed to testify on the law to the jury without the defense being allowed to rebut him.

During the trial, Michael Cohen was allowed, over defense objections, to repeatedly tell the jury that Trump violated campaign finance laws. This was a lie that was suborned by the prosecution and the judge. Michael Cohen told many lies, but this was one of the most damaging. Suborning perjury is a crime.

Michael Cohen also admitted he stole from the Trump organization and knowingly filed false documents on the witness stand. Cohen was never prosecuted for these crimes. Further, Cohen admitted to wanting to see Trump put behind bars and that he was making millions of dollars off of book deals and podcasts centered around defaming Trump.

The prosecution used a known perjurer, thief and conflicted witness as the star witness in their case, who they knew would tell the lies they wanted to hear given the leverage they had over him. Again, suborning perjury is a crime.

Michael Cohen’s previous plea deal for election interference was brought into the trial by the prosecution.

Prior to Cohen’s testimony, it was agreed that the prosecution would keep Cohen’s previous plea deals from being brought up. The prosecution brought them up anyways, insinuating that because Michael Cohen plead guilty, that Trump must also be guilty. When the defense objected, the judge overruled them. This is highly prejudicial testimony that is unrelated to the case at hand, violating Trump’s due process rights.

Federal election laws that were never violated or charged in the case were used as one of numerous predicate crimes jurors could pick from as the basis for convicting Trump on the records keeping charges.

The fifth amendment demands that no person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous (felony) crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury. This requires that all charges a defendant faces must be listed plainly on the charging documents. Trump was never charged with violating ANY campaign finance laws, state or federal. In fact, both federal and state prosecutors declined to prosecute Trump for any campaign finance violations, yet the jury was allowed to consider campaign finance violations as predicate crimes in Trump’s case. In other words, Trump was held to answer for an “infamous” crime without being indicted for it.

Trump wasn’t informed as to what the jury could consider as predicate crimes that would elevate the record keeping misdemeanors to felonies until after the trial concluded and injury instructions were issued.

This alone made preparing an adequate defense impossible. This was a violation of Trump’s fifth and sixth amendment rights to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusations against him.

The jury did not have to be unanimous on what predicate crime(s) they used to convict Trump of the records keeping violations.

We don’t know, and will never know, what the predicate crime(s) were that the jury based their record keeping convictions on. The jury was allowed to consider federal campaign crimes, tax crimes, and falsification of still more documents as the predicate crimes for their decision and they did not have to be unanimous on what those crimes were. There was virtually no testimony on tax law or campaign finance laws, yet the jury was allowed to consider those as predicate crimes. This plainly violated Trump’s due process rights. This is banana republic levels of nonsense.

Defense witnesses were prevented from testifying on Cohen’s credibility.

Robert Costello, who was the former Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division for the US Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York, and who currently works as a private criminal and commercial litigation lawyer, was prevented by Judge Merchan from rebutting Cohen’s testimony. Costello was Cohen’s attorney, but the jury wasn’t allowed to know that.

Cohen told the jury Costello was not his lawyer and that Trump was pressuring him to remain silent about the payments. Merchan prevented the defense from eliciting testimony that would show there was in fact a retainer agreement and that Costello was in fact his lawyer and that the pressure campaign was actually the other way around, where Cohen was pestering Costello and Giuliani to find out what Trump was up to. Basically this testimony would have proven Cohen perjured himself yet again.

Merchan denied Trump a public trial.

During Robert Costello’s testimony, Judge Merchan exploded in rage after Costello looked at the judge and said the word “jeez” after Merchan began sustaining objections by the prosecution without even letting the defense lawyers finish asking their question. Merchan then cleared the courtroom of all press and observers, and proceeded to threaten the Costello with contempt if he even looked at the judge again, and further threatened to strike his entire testimony. This denied Trump his right to a public trial.

The defense was effectively denied the ability to bring expert witnesses.

The defense wanted to call one of the foremost experts on campaign finance laws, Bradley A. Smith, to rebut the accusations made by Michael Cohen. Judge Merchan ruled that the only thing Smith could testify to was what the role of the FEC is in campaign finance regulation. Given that Smith would not be allowed to rebut Cohen’s testimony on campaign finance laws, the defense elected not to bother calling him. This means the jury got all of their information about campaign finance laws from Michael Cohen. This violated Trump’s 5th, 6th, and 14th amendment rights of due process, confronting witnesses, obtaining witnesses and assistance of counsel.

Advice of council defense was denied.

Michael Cohen was Trump’s legal attorney during the period these crimes were allegedly committed. Cohen should have been prohibited from testifying under attorney client privilege. Further, Trump relied on Cohen’s legal advice and work product to carry out completely legal NDA and finance agreements that were used to protect his brand image. Trump should have been allowed to bring an “advice of counsel” defense that placed the blame for any wrong doing solely on Cohen’s shoulders. Trump should have been allowed to assume that Cohen knew the law and was doing things in a legal and proper manner.

Presidential immunity defense was denied.

Knowing full well that all of these crimes are alleged to have occurred while Trump was the sitting President, and that Trump has a Presidential immunity case pending before the US Supreme Court that could potentially render this entire case moot, the NY Courts ordered that the case go forward anyways, costing Trump millions in potentially unnecessary legal expenses and incalculable reputational damage. This was yet another due process violation.

Bragg’s office tampered with evidence.

A paralegal from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office testified that three pages of phone records between Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels’s lawyer, Keith Davidson, were deleted from their evidence. Tampering with evidence is a class E felony under New York Consolidation Laws.

The defense was made to go first and denied a rebuttal in closing arguments.

The defense being made to go first implies the defense has something to prove. Not only is this highly prejudicial in that it implies the defense must prove their case, but it also denies the defense the ability to rebut the prosecution’s closing arguments. No sane and just legal system would make the defense present their closing before the prosecution, but apparently this is how business is done in New York’s kangaroo courts. This is a violation of Trump’s right to due process and a violation of his right against self-incrimination.

Further, the prosecution in their closing arguments repeatedly stated that the payment to Daniels constituted an illegal campaign contribution, a crime for which Trump was never charged and a claim that expert witnesses would have rebutted if they were allowed to. Trump was not allowed to defend himself against this lie, which was repeatedly told both by Cohen and the prosecution.

The missing witness instruction on Weisselberg that should have been provided to the jury.

The prosecution based their entire case on a conversation that took place between Trump, Cohen and Allen Weisselberg. Weisselberg was never called by the prosecution because he would have refuted everything Cohen said. The defense was not able to call Weisselberg because the prosecutor’s office is charging him with a perjury offense which would force Weisselberg to plead the fifth if called by the defense. The only party who could credibly bring Weisselberg to the stand is the prosecution. This is because they could have offered him immunity for his testimony - but they didn’t.

Because of this, the jury should have been instructed that they could draw an adverse inference from this, that Cohen’s testimony is untruthful, otherwise the prosecution would have called Weisselberg. This instruction was never given, again this violated Trump’s rights of due process, and his rights to confront witnesses.

Conclusion

Finally, I’ll leave you with this bit of federal US law.

18 USC § 242 (2011) states, “Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or to different punishments, pains, or penalties, on account of such person being an alien, or by reason of his color, or race, than are prescribed for the punishment of citizens, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both;”

Merchan, Bragg, Colangelo and a whole lot of other people involved in this mess should be behind bars themselves.

The following videos are commentary by several Democrat leaning law professors regarding the case. All of them come to the same conclusion; the list of reversible errors and due process violations that have occurred in this case are extraordinary.

Yale law professor Jed Rubenfeld breaks down the Trump case:

Retried Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz discusses the issues with the case:

George Washington University law professor Johnathan Turley discusses the problems with the case:

Cut and paste list of headlines:

• District Attorney Alvin Bragg publicly ran on a platform of prosecuting Trump.

• Lead Prosecutor Matthew B. Colangelo followed Trump around the country, changing jobs repeatedly, to lead cases against Trump, coming directly from the Biden controlled DoJ.

• Judge Juan Merchan, himself a Biden donor, had a first degree relative (his daughter) who was generating millions of dollars in donations for her business based on the case her father was presiding over.

• “Acting” Judge Merchan was “randomly” assigned to the Trump records case, the Steve Bannon case and the Trump organization case - a mathematical impossibility.

• Trump was denied a venue change from Manhattan, a city where 87% voted for Biden in the 2020 Presidential race.

• Judge Merchan allowed clearly biased jurors to continue sitting on the jury even after highly prejudicial statements and actions by them were exposed.

• Judge Merchan denied the defense their right to question each prospective juror.

• Judge Merchan gagged Trump, imposing a prior restraint of speech that dramatically hampered Trump’s ability to make his case in the court of public opinion.

• Trump’s council was not allowed to be notified of who the prosecution would call as a witness until the day before they were called.

• Unrelated highly prejudicial testimony by Daniels was allowed to be considered.

• Michael Cohen was allowed to testify on the law to the jury without the defense being allowed to rebut him.

• Michael Cohen’s previous plea deal for election interference was brought into the trial by the prosecution.

• Federal election laws that were never violated or charged in the case were used as one of numerous predicate crimes jurors could pick from as the basis for convicting Trump on the records keeping charges.

• Trump wasn’t informed as to what the jury could consider as predicate crimes that would elevate the record keeping misdemeanors to felonies until after the trial concluded and injury instructions were issued.

• The jury did not have to be unanimous on what predicate crime(s) they used to convict Trump of the records keeping violations.

• Defense witnesses were prevented from testifying on Cohen’s credibility.

• Merchan denied Trump a public trial.

• The defense was effectively denied the ability to bring expert witnesses.

• Advice of council defense was denied.

• Presidential immunity defense was denied.

• Bragg’s office tampered with evidence.

• The defense was made to go first and denied a rebuttal in closing arguments.

• The missing witness instruction on Weisselberg that should have been provided to the jury.