OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Legal expert and constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley believes that former President Donald Trump’s guilty verdict in his hush money trial could be easily reversed on procedural and constitutional grounds. According to Turley, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case was based on false accusations, and presiding Judge Juan Merchan severely hindered Trump’s defense, possibly unconstitutionally. Despite this, the jury found Trump guilty on all 34 counts.
“I think the level of reversible error here really is quite considerable. It runs the waterfront of procedural to constitutional problems, including federal constitutional violations,” Turley began. “I don’t even see how you can meet the unanimity requirement in the way that this thing was instructed.”
“Yeah, they were unanimous that some crime was committed on the secondary crime, but it’s apparently between the jurors and God as to what that crime was unless there is going to be some release of a jury form. We have not seen that jury form,” he continued, referencing a document that could explain on what basis jurors found Trump guilty.
“I think that, in the end, we were going to have a reversal. I’m fairly confident of that. Now, in the New York appellate system, they have a rule for Trump. They are very good lawyers in the New York system and credible people who want the system to work the way it is designed,” Turley continued. “I am eternally an optimist. I was an optimist about a hung jury. And I’m an optimist now about the appellate judges.
“I think at some point, people will step forward and say enough. You know, hating this man is not enough to forget the lack of the evidence. And once again, I do not blame this jury. They were given instructions that made it very easy to convict. And some of them might not have seen a real option not to, given how low these standards seem,” he added.
WATCH:
Professor Jonathan Turley said on Fox News today that he believes that the Trump verdict will be overturned:
“I personally don’t see how this verdict can be sustained (upon appeal).”
. pic.twitter.com/7IqJAa9Hzz— Paul Villarreal (AKA Vince Manfeld) (@AureliusStoic1) June 3, 2024
Democrats may be feeling somewhat giddy now that Trump is officially a convicted felon—for the time being—but they shouldn’t be.
Trump is becoming more and more popular in regions of the country where it would have seemed unimaginable to some.
The former president demonstrated this last week in former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s backyard by raising almost $12 million at a fundraiser with affluent tech industry figures, according to the Daily Wire.
Venture investor David Sacks and fellow venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya hosted the fundraiser at their Pacific Heights residence. Palihapitiya and Sacks co-host the well-liked podcast “All-In.” The price to attend varied from $50,000 and $500,000, depending on the perks. Many well-known cryptocurrency investors and venture capitalists attended the event.
During the fundraiser, Harmeet Dhillon, a member of the Republican National Committee, said the former president was “relaxed, happy, and cracking jokes about AI.”
Sacks reportedly said at the fundraiser that “this all started with JD Vance calling and asking if we could host an event for President Trump. Without JD’s advice and encouragement, this would never have happened.”
Sacks gave a lengthy explanation of his endorsement of the former president in a post on X. Here is a portion of it:
Why I’m Backing President Trump
As many press accounts have reported, I’m hosting a fundraising event for President Donald J. Trump at my home in San Francisco this evening. Over the last couple of years, I have hosted events for presidential candidates Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as well as several Congressional figures in both major parties. I give to many, but endorse few. But today I am giving my endorsement to our 45th President, Donald J. Trump, to be our 47th President. My reasons rest on four main issues that I think are vital to American prosperity, security, and stability – issues where the Biden administration has veered badly off course and where I believe President Trump can lead us back.
- The Economy President Biden took over an economy that was already recovering strongly from the Covid-induced shock of Q2 2020. Demand had roared back, and employment had recovered. But he chose to keep priming the pump with unnecessary Covid stimulus – almost $2 trillion of it, passed on a straight party-line vote in March of 2021, with trillions more to follow for “infrastructure,” green energy, and “inflation reduction.” Biden did this despite early warnings from former Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers that it could lead to inflation. When the inflation came, the Biden administration dismissed it as “transitory.” In fact, inflation still remains persistently high even after the fastest interest-rate tightening cycle in memory. As a result of Biden’s inflation, average Americans have lost roughly a fifth of their purchasing power over the last few years. Moreover, any American who needs a mortgage, car loan, or credit card debt faces much higher interest costs, which further constrain their purchasing power.
- Foreign Policy / Ukraine War President Trump left office with ISIS defeated, the Abraham Accords signed, and no new wars raging on the global stage. Three and a half years later, the world is on fire. President Biden has made several strategic choices that have contributed to this situation. In his first year in office, Biden unnecessarily alienated the Saudis before realizing that they are an indispensable partner in the Middle East. He also presided over a chaotic withdrawal of our troops from Afghanistan (right policy, abysmal execution). But his biggest blunder by far has been in Ukraine. His administration immediately began pushing for Ukraine’s admission to NATO, despite no unanimity among the existing NATO members that such a move was a good idea. When this predictably antagonized the Russians, the Biden administration doubled down at every turn, insisting that “NATO’s door is open, and will remain open” with respect to Ukraine. Biden himself baited Russia when he said he didn’t “accept anybody’s red lines.” After the invasion, there was still a chance to stop the war in its early weeks before much loss of life and destruction had occurred. Russian and Ukrainian negotiators had signed a draft agreement in Istanbul that would have seen Russia retreat to its pre-invasion borders in exchange for Ukrainian neutrality. But the Biden administration rejected that deal as well as General Milley’s advice to seek a diplomatic solution in November 2022.
- The Border As an immigrant to the United States myself, I certainly believe in America’s history of strengthening its ranks by welcoming talented people from other nations seeking freedom and opportunity. But that promise requires an orderly process of legal immigration that emphasizes skills and the principles of American citizenship. This was the preferred policy under President Trump. What Biden ushered in was a de facto open border policy. On his first day in office, he repealed President Trump’s executive orders restricting illegal immigration and stopped construction of a border wall, selling off parts of it for scrap metal. This quickly resulted in a massive spike in illegal border crossings and a chaotic and dangerous situation on our southern border.
- Lawfare A bedrock of the political stability we’ve enjoyed in America over the last 250 years is that we don’t accept attempts to jail political opponents in order to win an election. Yet Biden has pushed for selective and unprecedented prosecutions of his once and future opponent from the moment he assumed office. Merrick Garland took a long look at the January 6 situation and didn’t see a path to prosecute Trump, even after a one-sided Congressional committee sent a highly-prejudiced referral to his Justice Department. Press stories then appeared describing Biden’s frustration with Garland’s reticence. The result was Jack Smith at the federal level and Alvin Bragg and Fani Willis at the state level. All have pursued cases based on novel legal theories heretofore unseen and designed to get Trump.
Conclusion: The A/B Test The voters have experienced four years of President Trump and four years of President Biden. In tech, we call this an A/B test. With respect to economic policy, foreign policy, border policy, and legal fairness, Trump performed better. He is the President who deserves a second term.