Guilty: Now What?

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
What do you think we'll hear atten this morning a long time from Donald
Trump, and what should we hear? Well, you know, he's going
to talk about a rig justice systemand how this was a political persecution from
the very start, And unfortunately Iagree with him. I mean, I
think that's exactly what happened. Well, I don't call it New York anymore.

(00:22):
I call it Venezuela on the Hudson. Look, there were so much
deliberate wrongdoing in this case by thejudge and prosecution that when the Trump lawyers
file their appeal, the brief probablywill be as long and as big as
the novel War at Peace. Imean, I can't even go through all

(00:46):
the issues. The most current onewas the last one was the fact that
the judge, as you know,told the jury they didn't have to unanimously
agree on what the the particular crimewas that Donald Trump had supposedly committed and
that he didn't properly list in hisbusiness records. Look, we've had a

(01:11):
requirement for a unanimous verdict on allof the criminal charges against a defendant,
not only for our entire history,but going back through English common law.
I mean, that's been the standardfor literally hundreds of years, and yet
you have this acting judge in NewYork, a Biden political donor, giving

(01:37):
that kind of an instruction to thejury. Like I said, this was
deliberate wrongdoing by the judge, andthat jury frankly ought to be ashamed of
themselves for what they've done. Onething that came up, although it doesn't
matter anymore because the trial's over.But I'm just curious. So you,
as a former FEC member, certainlyknow this. The Federal Election Commission is

(02:00):
given exclusive authority over election finance law. Is there nobody above the Manhattan DA's
office in the state of New Yorkthat could have said, wait a minute,
you have no jurisdiction here. Well, that's that'll be one of the
issues of the Court of Appeal.And what makes this even worse is that

(02:23):
the judge said, yes, youall can consider whether you believe that Donald
Trump violated federal campaign finance law.Donald Trump's last win is they wanted to
bring in was Brad Smith, formerchairman of the FPC. In fact,

(02:43):
I took his seat the FPC whenhe resigned, and Brad would have come
in and testified, well, whatis the law what is the federal law?
How do you how do you consideror determine whether something's a campaign related
Smith and the judge wouldn't allow thattestimony. Again, deliberate intentional wrongdoing by

(03:07):
the judge. We had a listenerwho suggests this warning that Trump's team should
request an emergency appeal to the USSupreme Court. Is that possible in the
appellate process? No, the SupremeCourt, the US Supreme Court wouldn't take
that. He's going to have toappeal first through the New York state court

(03:30):
system if he doesn't get his verdictoverturned. At that point, once the
highest court in New York has madeits decision, then he can go to
the US Supreme Court. And Ithink he'll have plenty of grounds to do
that, the most basic one beingthat there were multiple numerous violations of his

(03:51):
due process rights, which are protectedby the US Constitution. Do you know
this relative to Judge Murshawn, Itlooks to me, and I've been consuming
a lot of information and opinion froma lot of really bright legal analysts,
that he was way way out ofline here. Is there a disciplinary process

(04:14):
in New York that, say aconservative senator or judge in the state could
bring against him. Yeah, there'sa judicial Ethics Commission which investigates wrongdoing by
judges. In fact, that commission, it came out not too long ago,
already previously had sent him Merchant acaution letter. Why because he violated

(04:41):
the ethics rules in New York thatsay a judge cannot make political contributions.
And this judge has made political contributionsto Democrats, including Joe Biden. Representative
Stefanik, who's one of the Republicanrepresent congresswomen in New York, has filed
two complaint letters with that ethics Commissionasking them to investigate not only his misbehavior,

(05:10):
but the fact that cases are supposedto be randomly assigned in the court
in New York, and yet Merchantkeep kept getting these cases involving Donald Trump.
Remember he previously was over a caseclaiming tax violations by the Trump organization.

(05:32):
That that's pretty odd that all ofa sudden he gets this case too.
There might have been manipulation, partisanmanipulation inside the court system. It
is his wife works for Letitia James, the Attorney General of New York,
and his daughter works in the Bidenadministration. What yeah, you need well.

(05:55):
Well, in fact, that's anothergood ground for the appeal is Merchant
should never have been on this case. He should have recused himself as soon
as it was assigned to him becauseof those family connections. No, it's
much more important that Alito recused himselfbecause of a flag, don't you think

(06:16):
that that's the word of that yousank. Thank you so much, Always
great to have you with us.Hans von Spakowsky from the Heritage Foundation