Dershowitz: Trial Judge's 3 INFURIATING Moves That Prove He Has an 'AGENDA'

After witnessing the hush money trail against former president Donald Trump, famed attorney Alan Dershowitz tells Glenn just how shocked he was at the blatant anti-Trump bias. Dershowitz explains 3 moves that Judge Juan Merchan made which he believes prove Merchan's true "agenda": He threatened to strike witness Robert Costello's entire testimony from the record because he raised his eyebrows; he heavily restricted what Costello and other defense witnesses could say, after letting Stormy Daniels say anything she wanted; and he appears to have allowed the jury to go home and watch the news coverage of the trial. But as for the case against Trump itself, Dershowitz asserts, "I have never seen a weaker case.” But yet, he fears the New York jury and biased judge will convict Trump anyways. So, is it time for him to add another banana to his "Banana Republic" scale?

TranscriptBelow is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: One of the biggest -- I just -- I don't understand how our justice system got to where it is, this quickly.

I hope it's the different in -- you know, in New York, and in Washington, DC. But I have a feeling it's this way, in many states

And we are not. We are not even connected to the rule of law anymore. I read an article. An op-ed from Alan Dershowitz. Who was at the courtroom.

The last -- you know, when the defense rested. And heard the testimony of who was it?

Was it Cohen? Stu. Or was it Collins?

I can't remember. Anyway, and all he did was raise his eyebrows when there was an objection, and the judge said, sustained. He looked at the judge and raised his eyebrows, which set the judge into a tirade. Cleared the courtroom. For some reason, Alan Dershowitz was allowed to stay. And he writes about it, Dersch.Substack.com. And you have to read it. And Alan joins us now.

Hi, Alan, how are you?

ALAN: Hi. I wish the trial was televised, so that all Americans could see the veins in this judge's head popping. I mean, he just went berserk. You know what he reminded me of the psycho in the movie Taxi Driver? You looking at me? Hey, you looking at me?

The judge has such thin skin.

You looking at me. You raising your eyebrows? I'm going to strike all your testimony. Can you imagine the effect, if the judge had actually gone through with it?

GLENN: Hang on just a second. Did he say that in front of the jury?

ALAN: No. No. No. He did that outside of the jury. In fact, he didn't say it in front of the media. He threw the media out for some bizarre reason. I was sitting in the front row. And they didn't ask me to leave. So I was sitting right near the judges and the defendants and Cohen and all of them. He took the jury out. But he said basically, if you raise your eyebrows again, I will deny Donald Trump a fair trial by striking your defense testimony, and not allowing him to put on -- and Donald Trump didn't raise his eyebrows, at least in the courtroom. But he certainly raised a lot of eyebrows outside of the courtroom, as he has a right to do, because this is a political trial, so he's responding in a political way.

But the idea that you would strike the defense, because of something, you didn't like a witness doing?

First of all, everybody has a constitutional right to raise their eyebrows. And to look and stare at a judge.

I've done that many, many times. I'll never forget May West, in the movie Little Chickadee. She's in front of the judge, and the judge says, you're showing your contempt. And May West says, no, Your Honor, I'm trying my best to hide my contempt for the court.

And, you know, that's what many people do to this judge. I'm not a witness or anything. So I didn't hide my contempt. I rolled my eyes. I raised my eyebrows. I stared at the judge. I whispered to people next to me like, would you believe, people did that? Kept out this testimony? Let in this testimony. Let's remember, this is a judge who was so permissive with the prosecution. He allowed Stormy Daniels to testify that they had sex in a missionary position, that he used a certain kind of deodorant, and that he wore silk pajamas.

Now, how is that relevant to an entry case involving bookkeeping entry? Utterly irrelevant. Utterly prejudicial. The judge said, no. No. Let it all go in. Let it all go in. But when Cohen tries to testify about what his former client said to him, and the client had waved the privilege.

Said to him, I don't know anything about Trump. I can't incriminate him. The judge said, no. No. I'm imposing restrictions on what your witness could say, and I would raise my eyebrows.

GLENN: Wait. Wait. Wait.

He wasn't allowed to enter that into testimony?

ALAN: He was restricted as to what he could say. He was allowed to say that he had said on numerous occasions, that -- that he didn't know anything about Trump.

But he was restricted from saying, many of the things. As he said, he swore to tell the truth. The whole truth. And nothing, but the truth.

And the judge said, no. I only want a partial truth.

When it came to an expert witness, the judge was even tougher. The judge said, even though the prosecution was allowed to introduce evidence, that they claim the payments were illegal campaign contributions. The country's leading expert on campaign contributions, who was prepared to testify. These were not illegal campaign contributions.

The judge said, no.

You can testify as to your credentials and a few other things. But you can't testify as to the legality or illegality, even though the other side is allowed to.

What does it mean under the Sixth Amendment, then, you have the right to confront the charges and the witnesses in front of you? You think that it means you have a right to call witnesses on your own. Who would tell a different story. And give a different account, so the jury could make up their mind.

Not according to this judge. This judge wants a conviction. Whether it's because his daughter would profit from a conviction. She runs a -- she works for a fundraising outfit that fundraises off this trial.

Or where there were other reasons for it. I don't know. I don't want try to psycho analyze. The judge. Other than the judge tried to psycho analyze Donald Trump.

In order to convict them, you have to believe that the only reason, that the false entries were made. They weren't even made by him. They were made by some underling.

That the only reason the false entries, if they were false. Were made. Was to affect the campaign.

It had no reason, to avoid embarrassment to his wife, to his son, who was in school at the time. To avoid losing his television show. Because there's a morality clause in the contract.

No -- no reason to believe, it might affect his branding business.

Because, you know, all the branding of the Trump hotels, et cetera.

Obviously, there were mixed motives.

But the judge had to conclude, the predominant motive was to impact the election. Even though, if there was a campaign contribution, he wouldn't have had to report it until after the election. This case is so absurd. In 60 years of practicing, teaching and writing about criminal law, I have never seen a weaker case. And yet, there might be a conviction because this is a New York jury.

GLENN: You have watched juries forever.

ALAN: Yeah.

GLENN: Did you see any signs from them at all, one way or another?

ALAN: Hard to tell. When he acknowledged that he had stolen $60,000 from Trump and never tried to repay it, I can see the jury's literally raising their own eyebrows. They learned forward. They paid close attention to that. There was a lot of boring testimony. And, you know, jurors don't close their eyes. But they sit back. You don't know what they're thinking.

The only problem is, that jurors usually love the judge. The judge is the benevolent despot. And he is benevolent when the jury is there. When the jury leaves, then he becomes the true tyrant, that he really is.

GLENN: Yes.

ALAN: So the jury may take a cue from the judge, and the judge will give his instruction, I believe, that clearly favors the prosecution, and is prejudiced against the defender. So there's no real predicting the outcome.

I guess the most betting people are saying, a hung jury. It will be hard to get 12 people, to conclude either way, that he was totally innocent or totally guilty.

GLENN: And then what happens from -- what happens from there?

ALAN: The prosecution has the right to try him again. But at that point, the trial will have to take place after the election. And I'm not sure they would go forth.

It would depend on the vote. If the vote were 10-2 for the conviction, they might be triumphant. If it was 10-2 for acquittal, they may not retry him.

So there's a lot to be seen. The other thing that is bizarre. I've never seen this before. The judge delayed the trial a whole week. The jury went home. The jury is home today, tomorrow. It will be home Friday.

Of course, then the holiday. Vacation. Then it comes back next week.

GLENN: Wait. Wait.

Isn't this one of these cases that you should really sequester the jury so they're not seeing the news?

ALAN: Of course. And especially if they're not seeing CNN or reading the New York Times.

One thing MSNBC, which have already convicted him, without a doubt.

I mean, MSNBC thinks this is the strongest case since the Abraham Lincoln assassination. If it had been on videotape. There's no doubt, by the MSNBC people, they're rooting for a verdict.

As is the media. When I was in the courtroom, the other day. You could just see. And you could hear from the media. They're all rooting for a conviction. Even one of the courtroom artists, criticized me. For coming to the trial, and showing support for Donald Trump.

I didn't come to show political support for Donald Trump. I haven't made up my mind who I'm voting for. I voted for Biden in the last election.

I didn't believe there to show political support. I came there to show legal support. That this was a case, that should never have been brought. I would have done the same thing, if Biden had been charged with a noncrime like this.

I'm not political when it comes to my legal analysis.

GLENN: Yeah.

Alan, let me switch gears. There is -- there is a story out about the FBI. And the raid on Mar-a-Lago. And, you know, that there was a -- and they were allowed to use deadly force.

And I -- it's my understanding, at least, that this is being misreported by the right.

That's in all of these. It's a general thing.

ALAN: It is. There shouldn't have been a search warrant at all. There should have been a subpoena. When you deal with people like the former president of the United States, you send them a subpoena.

And if he fails to disclose the material, then he's in contempt of court or in violation of statutes.

But you don't burst into his home.

Yeah. Of course, you need to be --

GLENN: So wait.

ALAN: If somebody is there, shooting at you.

But they should never have used the search warrant in the first place.

GLENN: Yeah. That was kind of.

I didn't know about the subpoena, and all that, that you had other options.

But as I'm. I was looking at this, this morning.

And I was like, you know, at least for presidents. And I think it would be fine for other things.

Because a lot of people seem to be having their terrors kicked in.

When it comes to the president. And I say this about Biden too.

I'm sure that was in the same, you know, paperwork for Joe Biden.

In his garage.

ALAN: No. They didn't have a support. They didn't have a search warrant for Biden. They had a subpoena. So there was no such paperwork for Biden.

GLENN: Oh, my God.

ALAN: So it's a very, very different standard.

It's rare to get a search warrant.

Normally, the way to go, is just in a gentlemanly way. Or in a ladylike way. You say, look, we're subpoenaing this. Please, produce it to the court tomorrow. And if you don't, you'll be held in contempt. And if you try to destroy something, like it's claimed Hillary Clinton tried to destroy some of our servers, that's an independent crime.

But Hillary Clinton didn't have a search warrant conducted against her. Joe Biden didn't. I don't know about Biden's kid.

I don't know whether Hunter Biden had a search warrant. Search warrants are not the usual way of obtaining material.

Usually it's by subpoena.

GLENN: So I talked to you maybe six months ago, and we were talking about banana republics.

And you said, we're up to six bananas. Get ten bananas, and we're a banana republic. Where are we today?

ALAN: Yeah. If it's a conviction, we're up to seven. But there's another court I want to talk about for a second, if you don't mind. And that is the International Criminal Court, that for the first time in its history, has gone after leaders of the democracy. Namely Benjamin Netanyahu, and the -- the foreign -- the military minister, in Israel. Even though, what they did was purely self-defense.

And -- and it means that the United States is at risk. Great Britain is at risk.

Canada is at risk. Any country that wages war is now at risk.

There is a rule for the International Criminal Court, that they can't go after any country, that has a working judiciary, which is capable and willing to investigate their own people.

Now, Israel has a very active judiciary. Four former prime ministers were investigated.

Four former prime ministers, Rabid, Sharome, Elmer (phonetic), and Netanyahu. In one form, a president went to jail. In fact, I made a joke about that, when I visited Omar in prison. I said, in Israel, when you ask for a former Prime Minister's cell number, it's not necessarily his cell number. And what other country can boast that they have had such an aggressive judiciary? And yet the international criminal court says, no, no, no. We're going after you.

Even though, Israel and the United States, they're not even signatories to the treaty. They're not members of the court. So we live in an age now, where courts are going out of control.

The court in New York is out of control. The court in the Hague is out of control.

And we should not be living by the judiciary. You know, in the book of, I think it's the book of Ruth. In the Bible, it starts by saying, when judges ruled the land, there was famine and hunger.

You know, you don't want judges to rule the land.

GLENN: Yes. Yes.

Alan, thank you so much for talking to us. I appreciate it.

ALAN: Always a pleasure to have an intelligent talk with you. I look forward to it.

GLENN: Thank you. Alan Dershowitz, law school professor ameritas, and host of the Dershow.

The Dershow. And he's also the author of Get Trump. If you haven't read that, it's well worth your time.