OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
A legal panel exchanged observations during a segment on CNN Tuesday in discussing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s hush money case against former President Donald Trump, with one advising that the prosecutors need to “be careful.”
In particular, Bragg is destined for trouble if he tries to convict Trump based heavily on his association with the National Enquirer, the CNN panel agreed.
Network legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Elie Honig, former Trump attorney Tim Panatore, and others deliberated in the hours following a second day of arguments in Trump’s hush money trial. Initially seeking Judge Juan Merchan’s approval to fine Trump for allegedly violating a gag order, prosecutors then presented former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, who testified about a “catch and kill” strategy employed during the 2016 election to suppress damaging stories to Trump’s campaign.
The panel concurred that some of these stories, involving rumors of extramarital affairs and other sensational matters, might resonate in the tabloids but lack legal weight in court.
“There’s a risk for the prosecution because … a lot of this stuff is not criminal, and I disagree that some of this would be an in-kind campaign contribution because the Supreme Court’s holding in Citizens United did kind of move this outside of that,” Parlatore said according to the Daily Caller.
“And so if they spend too much time on this, especially right at the beginning, and an appellate court looks at it and say[s], ‘you’ve prejudiced this jury by presenting all this information that is salacious, amoral, but not criminal,’ then that is the type of thing that can improperly sway the jury to the other side,” he said.
During Tuesday’s segment of “Inside Politics with Dana Bash,” the panelists also predicted that Bragg and his team might jeopardize their case, which revolves around alleged fraudulent business records, if they attempt to sway the jury with sensational but tangentially related gossip stories.
“To me, this may actually turn out to be a misstep by the prosecution, by spending so much time on this when really this case is about the business record entries of the payments to Michael Cohen, which have nothing to do with any of this,” Parlatore added.
“They have to be careful as they‘re putting up their fourth and fifth headline,” Honig said. “They better put the brakes on that.”
Honig further points out that both the Southern District of New York and Bragg’s office initially declined to bring charges against Trump after reviewing the case. Also, the Federal Election Commission did not consider the payments to be violations of federal election law.
WATCH:
The attorney who also serves as Trump’s spokeswoman ripped the Democrat-dominated justice system in New York City as “third world” and indicated that the judge overseeing her client’s hush money trial is regularly violating Trump’s constitutional rights to a fair process.
Alina Habba specifically addressed the nearly unprecedented gag order on Trump’s business records criminal trial in Manhattan, the first against a former president.
“The gag orders, the unconstitutionality. I mean, what is more Colombia? Russia? What is more third world?” Habba told Newsmax TV host Carl Higbie. “This is why we have people pouring into our country, running for freedom. And now we’re gonna be like that. You know, we are that. It’s disgusting.”
In Tuesday’s courtroom session, Judge Juan Merchan chastised Trump’s attorney, Todd Blanche, as he vigorously defended Trump against the gag order. Blanche contended that Trump’s responses to political attacks shouldn’t warrant punishment, but Merchan rebuked him, stating that he was “losing all credibility” on the matter.
“What happened in court today with the gag order and the anger that you’re seeing from these judges; it’s very concerning for me,” Habba said.
