By Mike Huckabee
March 26, 2024
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“There are so many problems with this case, it’s hard to know where to start. This judge never should have been assigned to the case; it wasn’t randomly assigned --- he was assigned to the Trump Organization case, he was assigned to the Bannon case --- they say the chief administrative judge put him on it. It wasn’t because he was qualified in my view. But, nothing but bad experiences with him. He’s an anti-Trumper.”
Shoen had much more to say in terms of the problems with this case. The indictment is defective, the witnesses dicey, and (unbelievably) it’s a case the feds had decided not to pursue! They thought it shouldn’t be brought.
Recall that DA Alvin Bragg’s office brought in two outside prosecutors Mark Pomerantz and Carey Dunn, who spent a year (!) studying the Trump Organization with the idea of pursuing a larger case against it. The DA’s office actually decided against pursuing that in criminal court --- and you know they must’ve been itching to do it --- leading Pomerantz and Dunn to quit. Pomerantz’ subsequent book, PEOPLE VS. DONALD TRUMP, reflects that “get Trump mentality,” remarking that Trump “manages to dance between the raindrops of accountability” and offering suggestions for how “to bring him to justice.”
Gosh, Trump’s so-called lack of accountability (!) must be that those who want him punished just aren’t trying hard enough.
Pomerantz must be thrilled now that New York State Attorney General Letitia James is pursuing aspects of the very case he wanted to bring, the so-called “real estate fraud,” only in civil court. No doubt he’d approve of Trump having to post a bond of nearly half a billion dollars in cash to satisfy a wildly inflated judgement to appeal the decision in a case with no victims. Imagine his disappointment when that amount was reduced to something Trump could conceivably pay.
Anyway, here’s a surprisingly straight-up (considering it’s out of San Francisco) report on the upcoming case.
There’s one problem this report fails to mention, though, that David Schoen does: Bob Costello, Michael Cohen’s lawyer and a witness for this trial, is going to say “that Michael Cohen told a completely different story, and Michael Cohen waived privilege [so his lawyer can now testify to this]. That’s one of the reasons the feds never prosecuted.”
Mike Davis, former clerk for Justice Gorsuch, was on the show as well, explaining that this is “a dog of a case” in which “they have taken a businessman settling a nuisance claim and tried to turn this into felony campaign finance violations that the prior Manhattan DA, the Manhattan U.S. attorney, the Federal Election Commission (!), and Alvin Bragg himself passed over.” Matthew Colangelo, in the “#3 office” in the Biden “Justice” Department was called upon “to resurrect this zombie case to get Trump.”
Speaking of Colangelo, Trump let loose on him in a press conference on Monday, calling him one of Biden’s “thugs” and “a radical left [prosecutor] who was put into the state to work for Letitia James and was then put into the district attorney’s office to run the trial against Trump.” He called out Mark Pomerantz, too:
“You have Mark Pomerantz. He was Hillary Clinton’s lawyer or Democratic National Committee’s lawyer. He walked in and took over the district attorney’s office --- nobody’s ever seen anything like that --- to prosecute Trump. And then they wouldn’t do what he wanted to do.”
Here’s his rant, along with more on the case from the NEW YORK POST…
David Schoen, when asked about the advisability of Trump accusing the judge of partisanship, gave him a thumbs-up: “[Trump] has to keep making the record in this case. This judge is always gonna be annoyed with anything that appears to be in President Trump’s favor. You have tens of thousands of documents being turned over at the last minute here, that easily could’ve been gotten from the federal prosecutors; they worked WITH the federal prosecutors...Colangelo COMES from the feds; he also comes from the New York attorney general’s office, where he went after Trump as well.”
Schoen continued, “They just can’t play it straight with people who are looking for justice in this case.” And this judge is “the wrong guy for this job.” But Trump needs to “stay the course,” he said, “and keep raising all the legal issues in this case.”
“And wait till you see what happens when Michael Cohen testifies, and his own lawyer contradicts him.”
Can’t wait. But think of the pressure on Trump --- while he’s trying to campaign for President. The left’s strategy is to wear him out, though apparently, they still haven’t realized that their attacks have the opposite effect. (Heck, we’re worn out just trying to keep track of it all!) This seems to be Trump’s superpower, and it’s one more reason he makes a great President. James Singer, campaign spokesman for Biden-Harris ‘24, had the most ridiculous thing to say after Trump’s rant: “Donald Trump is weak and desperate --- both as a man and a candidate for President…America deserves better than a feeble, confused and tired Donald Trump.” Note: This is the campaign spokesperson for JOE BIDEN.
But this still doesn’t answer our original question: how do these judges get “randomly” assigned?
Judge Merchan, according to AXIOS a month ago, declined to recuse himself from this case last August after Trump’s attorneys requested this due to allegations of bias. (A New York advisory committee on judicial ethics had reportedly guided him in deciding this.) Trump would certainly disagree, having said on Truth Social that the judge “HATES ME.”
Merchan happens to have presided over other Trump Organization trials (what are the odds?), including one in which he sentenced CFO Allen Weisselberg, to five months in prison --- the notorious Rikers Island --- and five years’ probation, plus nearly $2 million in taxes and penalties, for tax fraud in a case that did not involve Trump.
https://www.axios.com/2023/01/10/allen-weisselberg-sentencing-tax-fraud-scheme
The AP reported that “Merchan was heavily involved in negotiations that led to Weisselberg’s guilty plea for skirting taxes on big-dollar job perks, including Manhattan apartments and school tuition.” Even a week at Rikers Island seems like a terribly extreme punishment for a 75-year-old man who pleaded guilty to tax fraud. Might we ask, when is alleged tax fraudster Hunter Biden going to be offered a plea that includes a stint at Rikers Island or comparable horrific lock-up?
Merchan is also presiding over a trial involving Steve Bannon in what is alleged to be a scheme to defraud donors at a fundraiser to help build a wall at the southern border.
But how did he get the “hush money” case, too? How random are these assignments, really? According to the AP, “[Merchan] got Trump’s case because of a rotation in which judges are assigned to oversee grand juries and any cases that arise from them, according to the court system.” So we’d need to trace it back to who’s assigning cases to whose grand jury. Is that the “chief administrative judge” David Schoen was talking about? It’ll be interesting to find out, if we can.
RELATED: Speaking of Mike Davis and Steve Bannon, here they are together, on Bannon’s podcast from last week, with Davis talking about the importance of “privilege” --- executive privilege, attorney-client privilege, etc. He also concisely compares the Trump and Biden “classified documents” cases. A really good six minutes…
ALSO RELATED: Bonchie at Redstate.com asks the question that nobody is asking about the Trump hush money trial: “What if Trump is acquitted?”
Naturally, with this judge and a carefully-selected Trump-hating New York jury, everyone assumes he could be convicted of kidnapping the Lindbergh baby. But this case is such a house of cards, built by twisting and co-mingling state and federal laws and following the same flawed model that failed against Democrat John Edwards, that maybe there’s a tiny chance that at least one juror will refuse to rubber stamp it. If Trump gets acquitted, as he should be, what then?
Here’s a hint: It could spell the end of DA Alvin Bragg’s career and an electoral Armageddon for Joe Biden. That’s why the Democrats are so desperate to get a conviction of Trump, and why Bragg doesn’t seem all that eager to hurry up and go to court.
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