Trusty on Trump’s Trial: Judge Merchan Should Have Recused Himself from the Start
RUSH EXCERPT:
TRUSTY: "Yeah. Well, I think there’s a couple of things. Number one, just by nature I’m kind of hesitant to go all in on accusing a judge of anything. If I’m not in the courtroom every day, because you miss the tone in which they’re reacting to the attorneys, you miss just the kind of subtle psychology of how a judge is treating either side. And there’s a lot of people that are saying without ever setting foot in the courtroom that they know exactly what a makes this judge tick. There’s a couple of flashpoints that are of concern, the first being he should have recused himself from the if start. And it’s not about the penny ante contributions he made to the Biden or Obama campaigns, it’s that his daughter was in the machine of the Democratic Party making millions of dollar, dealing with the national-level Democratic Party. That just not a good look, and I just don’t understand why judges aren’t more uniformly sensitive to the appearance of impropriety particularly on a case of this magnitude. That’s strike one. Strike two was hat whole trial proceeded, Paul, without anyone really knowing what the theory of felonization was until instructions. That’s an absurd or procedural error, and I Kuwait process with fairness — I equate process with fairness that infected this case from the beginning. So when the the judge finally gave the instructions on what made these misdemeanor bookkeeping entries felonies, it was kind of a menu, a buffet menu of you don’t really have to decide whether there was a federal — I’m sorry, a felony violation or what the exact basis is, just decide there’s something illegal. It gives them three options which were vague and in some cases federal, which makes no sense in state court. Is so I think that’s the error — probably the sexiest area for appeal is that coupled with the denial of the FEC chair’s testimony because that a just inflames the problem of mystery instructions that include federal ones getting before this jury."
