The soaring and staggering incompetence of the New York press lickspittles re. the Tump trial verdict.
I just finished watching New York D.A. Alvin Bragg’s so-called press conference in which he humbly took bows for the conviction of Donald Trump on 34 counts of the equivalent of parking tickets.
I’m no lawyer, but I’ve been a decades-long Chicago journalist. As that I was astonished how the New York reporters in Bragg’s press conference allowed the D.A. turn it into a self-love fest.
The reporters ignored asking him anything close to important. Like the multitude of reversible errors, judicial bias, goofy jury instructions and more than have been raised by lawyers, law professors and judicial observers.
The case was built on the argument that Trump’s bookkeeping sought to conceal unlawful activity (“underlying crime)” that impacted the 2016 presidential election.
No reported seem bothered that the jury could pick whatever crime they wanted on which to hang the felony charge. Even though Trump had not been convicted or even indicted on only such crime.
Judge Juan Merchan never told the jurors what the crime was. Instead, he gave them a choice on which of the three it was. The jurors didn’t even have to agree on which of the alleged three crimes were committed. Going into deliberations, the jury thought that the three were a violation of a federal election law, a tax law or a New York election law.
Remarkably, though, Bragg said at the press briefing that the “underlying” crime was a violation of New York election law. Something that that the jurors were never told. Bragg probably figured that the underlying crime could not be a violation of the federal election code because the New York state court had no jurisdiction over federal law.
The reporters seemed uninterested in asking about the slew of reversible errors that Merchan scattered throughout the five-week trial. Such as upholding prosecution objections against the defense team, while squelching objections on similar matters from the defense team against the prosecution.
Reporters could have asked about Merchan’s clear anti-Trump bias and the finanical rewards his family would get from a conviction. One soft-ball after another. One reporter even asked the lead prosecution attorney how he felt about how someone having called his handling of the case “masterful.”
The trail revolved entirely around a book-keeping entry. The evidence was based on the testimony of the star witness, the convicted perjurer Michael Cohen. Judge Merchan probably believing that Cohen’s testimony was so incredible that he told jurors that they didn’t have to try on that alone. Instead, he said, take into consideration of the entire context. I suppose he meant that they could depend on the porn starts total irrelevant but detailed testimony about Trump and his silk pajamas. By the way, allowing that irrelevant testimony to be told at excruciating length ought to be another reversible error.
What now? My hope is that the case is peppered with so many flaws and violations of due process that the Trump lawyers jump over all the political New York judges in appeals and go directly to the U,.S. Supreme court with a writ of certiorari allowing the high court to take over the case on federal grounds.
As for what to do with today’s “journalists” like the incompetent ignorames who acted as props for Bragg’s press conference, I have no idea. Journalism schools (if they can be called that anymore) that are churning out these scribblers deserve a close look at what the hell the schools are teaching.
Brilliant expose of non-journalism.