Juan Merchan Delays Ruling on Trump Prosecution, Either Backing Down or Setting Trap

Three Key Energy Moves Trump Plans For His First 100 Days

President-elect Donald Trump moved one step closer to beating Alvin Bragg’s lawfare against him on Tuesday as Justice Juan Merchan rescheduled ruling on motions to set aside the politically motivated New York convictions, but it could also be an attempt to trap the president in this unconstitutional prosecution.

Bragg’s prosecution of former President and current President-elect Trump has been plagued by a host of constitutional violations, beginning with his indictment. The Constitution’s Sixth Amendment gives every defendant the right to be adequately “informed of the nature of and cause of the accusation” against him. Yet Bragg’s indictment alleged that Trump committed a felony by falsifying business records with the “intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof” but never specified what that crime was. That violates the Sixth Amendment, as recognized by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which includes New York.

At the end of Trump’s trial, Merchan and Bragg revealed that the second crime was a New York law to “promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means.” But those jury instructions never specified the “unlawful means.” In other words, the second crime now depends on a third crime.

But then Merchan’s jury instructions go on to hint at that third crime: violating the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA). Specifically, Bragg alleges that Trump made a payment as part of a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) to keep quiet an alleged interlude that the president steadfastly denies, with Merchan instructing the jury that they can consider that an illegal federal campaign expense.

But that too would be unconstitutional. NDAs are not FECA violations under federal law. Only the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) or the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) can say otherwise, and they have done the opposite. A county prosecutor in charge of enforcing New York state law cannot create a new federal crime by interpreting federal law differently than the federal government. That violates the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Merchan then committed another error that would lead to the reversal of Trump’s prosecution on appeal by not allowing former FEC Chairman Brad Smith to testify at the trial to explain to the jury that NDA payments are not illegal campaign expenses, and therefore that even if all the factual allegations were true, it would not violate federal law.

But Merchan’s presiding over this case is also unconstitutional, violating due process. Merchan gave political contributions to opponents of President-elect Trump, specifically the Democratic Party and Joe Biden. Federal judges never give such contributions, and if they did, they would be required to recuse from a matter. That is because the Constitution entitles every defendant to a judge who is fair and impartial, so it violates the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause for a state judge to preside over the prosecution of a politician where he has donated money to that politician’s opponent.

Merchan then violated the Constitution yet again by giving the jury multiple crimes to choose from for this “unlawful means” aspect of the case. He said each juror could look at a menu of options, and so long as the juror found one crime he liked, he could vote to convict Trump — which resulted in 34 felony counts.

But when a person is charged with a felony, the Sixth Amendment commands that a 12-person jury must unanimously vote to convict the defendant of that crime. Merchan’s choose-your-own-adventure instruction saying the jurors could disagree about what the crime is yet still convict Trump is a shocking violation of his constitutional rights.

President-elect Trump’s lawyers are asserting additional legal grounds for reversal as well, but you get the point. This was a thoroughly illegal prosecution from the very beginning, weaponizing law enforcement and the court system in Banana Republic-style lawfare to criminalize political opposition.

For all those reasons, if Merchan refused to set aside the convictions, many people have rightly been waiting to get this case out of Merchan’s courtroom so Trump’s convictions could be thrown out on appeal.

Then came the watershed Supreme Court decision in Trump v. United States on July 1 regarding presidential immunity. Although the court decision merely made official something that constitutional scholars have always believe existed — and the Left has melted down over it, gaslighting voters with ridiculous lies about the court’s decision — it became a new reason to throw out Trump’s convictions. Trump’s lawyers, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, promptly presented that argument to Merchan as well.

Merchan was scheduled to rule on Trump’s motions on November 12 to set aside the convictions and dismiss the indictment. If he denied all those motions, he was scheduled to impose sentence on the incoming president on November 26, but that would also start the process of appealing this travesty of justice.

Trump’s lawyers wisely protected their client by pushing to delay the possibility of incarceration, given that the Constitution would not allow a sitting president to be imprisoned.

But one of two things is happening, and it is not clear which. One is positive for the president, the other presents a challenge.

On one hand, perhaps Merchan could see the handwriting on the wall. This lawfare was election interference and it failed. Trump was elected to a second term in a modern landslide, with unified government. This prosecution was and is unlawful and so are the convictions, and this pause could be the first step in landing the plane. Bragg and Merchan have been beaten, and they should know it.

On the other hand, this could be an attempt to trap the president. Until Merchan enters final judgment in the case, there are only a few ways to get this case away from him and into a court that will follow the law. If he could freeze the case where it is now, he could wait until after President Trump’s second term, then pull Trump back into his courtroom after January 2029 and attempt to imprison Trump as a private citizen for the rest of his life.

The president has options, but only a few. And his lawyers are currently trying to exercise one such option.

That route is to remove this prosecution to federal court under 28 U.S.C. § 1442. While the facts alleged against Trump in the charge are for a time before he was president — 2016, specifically — some of the (absurd) evidence introduced against him is from his time the White House, courtesy of disgraced convicted criminal liar Michael Cohen.

Trump’s lawyers are attempting to remove the case to federal court on account of that federal defense. (A previous attempt at the beginning of the prosecution was unsuccessful, but that was before the Supreme Court officially recognized presidential immunity.)

A federal trial judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York mistakenly dismissed that removal under what is called the Rooker-Feldman doctrine (mistaken because Rooker-Feldman does not apply to state court cases that are ongoing, including cases on appeal). But Trump’s lawyers have appealed that ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, where it will not be argued for at least another couple months.

If that appeal succeeds, then the president will be in the federal system, where he should decisively win, even if it means needing to go up to the U.S. Supreme Court first. And there are other potential routes to victory as well, given the extraordinary circumstances presented by the Left’s unprecedented lawfare against President-elect Trump.

The coming weeks will tell whether this is a slow surrender or an attempt to tie up the proceedings. If it is the latter, no doubt Donald Trump and his team will be ready.

The cases are People v. Trump, No. 71543/23 in the Supreme Court of New York County, and New York v. Trump, No. 24-2299 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Originally Posted At www.breitbart.com

zerohedge
Economics , News , Politics , Science
December 7, 2024
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The Miserable Cost Of An Open Border

Authored by Seth Barron via RealClearPolitics,

The Biden-Harris experiment in dissolving the U.S. border has wrought massive changes to American society, most of which will not be understood for years, if not decades. Since 2021, U.S. border officials have had at least 10 million “encounters” with migrants, many of whom were allowed to enter the country. There is no telling how many more aliens entered the country without encountering enforcement agents. The population of the United States may have increased by as much as 15 million people in just a few years.

This massive flow of humanity crosses multiple national borders, involves every mode of transportation, accounts for billions of dollars paid in fees to smugglers, and describes a fantastically complex economy of suffering and hope. In an effort to get a handle on this human tide, noted muckraker James O’Keefe – known for his hidden camera “gotcha” interviews with abortionists, media executives, progressive nonprofit executives, and other degenerate types – traces the migrant onrush from its source, and seeks to trace the machinery of profit and influence that is conducting it from great removes.

“Line In The Sand,” the resulting documentary, is a remarkable and humane exposition, revealing perspectives and images American audiences have mostly been prevented from seeing. O’Keefe and his intrepid team begin on the U.S. side of the Mexican border, where we witness migrants crossing the border through holes that their guides have cut in a fence that serves as a target as much as a barrier. Infrared cameras show dozens of illegal aliens streaming toward “pick-up” vehicles on the U.S. side while smugglers – presumably cartel members – a few feet away taunt O’Keefe and his group. “What if I were to run up to them right now, what would happen?” O’Keefe asks his guide. “I would highly advise you against that,” he is told, in a classic understatement.

The fact that coyotes and other human traffickers are paid to assist northbound migrants with their passage is no scandal; we all know what their motivations are and why they are doing what they do. But O’Keefe documents multiple examples of U.S. Border Patrol agents standing idly by while illegal aliens cross, virtually under their noses. “Why aren’t you doing anything?” he asks. “Have a good day, guys,” a border agent desultorily responds before driving off in the general direction of the episode. Later, a migrant stands in front of a Border Patrol truck, clearly trying to alert the agents of his intention to surrender, but is studiously ignored until O’Keefe and his team call their attention to him.

There is a kind of sad comedy in the operations of U.S. border security, and O’Keefe is not unsympathetic to the absurd position that border agents have been put in. Trained to defend the national border and to serve as the first line of defense of American soil, these agents have been recommissioned as a perverse Welcome Wagon for illegal aliens, charged with making their undocumented and uninvited entrance to the United States as commodious as possible.

Looking to get deeper into the heart of this migratory avalanche, O’Keefe went deep into Mexico, to the city of Irapuato, about 150 miles northwest of Mexico City. Irapuato is a popular railway junction where thousands of migrants climb aboard “La Bestia,” or “The Beast,” a cargo train that chugs northward toward the United States. In the film’s most remarkable footage, O’Keefe and his team join with migrants, mostly from South and Central America, to ride The Beast, also known as “el Tren del Muerto,” or the Train of Death. O’Keefe talks to the migrants without condescension, asking them their destinations and what they plan to do when they get there, and their concerns about the perilous nature of the journey. We see the film crew race to jump on a moving train and clamber on top to sit in a pile of coal; O’Keefe is shocked at how truly dangerous this small element of the trip is and sympathizes with the migrants’ difficult choices. These scenes are among the film’s most affecting, along with the crew’s random encounter with a little girl who had just crossed the border after journeying from Guatemala by herself. There is a human dimension to illegal immigration, and O’Keefe does not ignore it.

However, there is also an impersonal dimension to this massive population transfer, and O’Keefe determinedly aims to uncover it – to put a face to the institutions and administrators that benefit from the rough injection of millions of people into American society. From government agents to bus companies to nonprofit resettlement groups to private contractors running huge, walled compounds housing thousands of children, O’Keefe doggedly tries to penetrate the mechanics of a system that resolutely hides itself behind a screen of silence, usually in the name of “safety” and “privacy.”

Some of the film’s more comical moments pertain to these segments, such as when the team follows some just-arrived Chinese migrants in San Diego to an employment agency, where other Chinese aliens, already in the country for several months, complain that it’s much harder to live in the United States than they had imagined. O’Keefe tries to sniff out a connection between the owner of the agency and more powerful actors, but it emerges that there really isn’t much going on; in fact, the owner asks O’Keefe if he knows of a way to apply for government grants.

Elsewhere, O’Keefe tries to get information about the operations of several huge residential centers for unaccompanied minors and tries to spin their refusal to give him access to the centers or submit to interviews as evidence of the existence of vast, government-funded child sex trafficking networks. But it seems more likely, though no less troubling, that the open borders policy of the last four years has created a tremendous humanitarian crisis of alien children roaming the continent by themselves, and the government is probably trying to keep them from becoming prey to sex traffickers while they sort out where to send them. Though O’Keefe does not uncover a salacious network of child predators, his vigorous pursuit of the truth does reveal the existence of a large, shadowy, government-funded, and lucrative system of child “welfare.”

So, “Line In The Sand” is correct in the larger sense that billions of dollars are being spent managing this human flow, and many people are getting rich off of it. The last thing these parasitical administrators of the nonprofit industrial complex want is for the border to close. O’Keefe does a great job of capturing in real time the corruption of a local New York City nonprofit called La Jornada, whose leader, Pedro Rodriguez, evidently perpetrates fraud, demanding fees for services that the city provides for free. O’Keefe also sends a Spanish-speaking reporter undercover into the Roosevelt Hotel, New York City’s main processing center for newly-arrived migrants, which offers him free housing, medical care, and even airplane tickets, even though the reporter explains that he has no identification of any sort. How, O’Keefe asks, in our post 9/11 security-obsessed era, are we to make sense of a system that admits millions of unvetted foreigners into the country, and then offers to fly them anywhere they care to go?

“Line In The Sand” is rough in parts, but intentionally so. Its subject is so sprawling and tangled that a neat and clean representation would be a lie. Even with a nine-figure budget – which this film assuredly did not have – a documentary about the border and the 30 million-footed human swarm that has crossed it would be messy and incomplete. But James O’Keefe and his small team have done something remarkable. They have taken on the decade’s biggest story, given it form, and preserved the humanity of its subjects. It is worth watching.

Seth Barron is a writer in New York and author of the forthcoming “Weaponized from Humanix.”

Tyler Durden
Sat, 12/07/2024 – 17:30