Trump Derangement Syndrome

Courtroom spectacle, resting on a contorted legal theory and a tawdry cast of characters, chiefly hurts the Democrats

It was supposed to be a win-win proposition. Tie Donald Trump down in a Lilliputian web of criminal prosecutions and, whatever the outcome, it would greatly enhance the likelihood that he would never again win a presidential election.

Either he would be convicted in at least one of the cases against him, and those swing voters already uneasy about the man would have to decide whether they could actually elect a bona fide felon as president. Or, even if somehow none of the cases produced a conviction, he would still be so consumed in an election year with trial proceedings, the airwaves so full of sworn testimonies to his moral turpitude, that the sheer weight of it all would sink him.

The husband of Stormy Daniels said there is a “good chance” that the couple will leave the US if Donald Trump is acquitted in his criminal trial over paying hush-money payments to the adult film star.

“I think if it’s not guilty, we got to decide what to do. Good chance we’ll probably vacate this country,” Barrett Blade told CNN host Erin Burnett on Tuesday.

“If he is found guilty, then she’s still got to deal with all the hate. I feel like she’s the reason that he’s guilty from all his followers, so I don’t see it as a win-win situation either way.”

Judge Merchan’s animosity toward Trump and his inability to ensure a fair trial is not lost on voters.

Recently, when former President Trump openly accused the New York judge presiding over his “hush money” trial of plotting to put him in jail and declared himself willing to emulate Nelson Mandela, it had the desired effect on the commentariat and the savants of social media. They provided Trump with plenty of earned coverage and precious little substance concerning how the voters will react if he is jailed for committing a misdemeanor. It’s obvious that the Biden reelection campaign is relying on lawfare to drive down Trump’s support. Yet, according to a recent AP-NORC poll, “Only about one-third of U.S. adults say Trump did something illegal in the hush money case.”

If you were flipping between CNN and Fox News following the cross-examination of Stormy Daniels in the New York criminal case against former President Donald Trump, you would have had the impression that the CNN commentator, who professed to be reporting what happened in the courtroom, described a completely different event from what the Fox News reporter, who was also in the courtroom, described. It was as if they had seen two different witnesses and two different lawyers.

With former president Trump’s criminal trial now in its fourth week of testimony, I wonder what the Manhattan jury must be thinking about the resources the elected Democratic district attorney is devoting to it.

The majority of crime goes unreported. Of that which is reported, the number of crime cases that are “solved” — what police call the “clearance rate” — is alarmingly low. That is especially the case in Manhattan. Last week, the Manhattan Institute’s Tim Rosenberger noted in the City Journal that less than three in ten cases (29.8 percent) are cleared.

Alvin Bragg’s case against Trump has been in trouble as witness after witness for the prosecution seems to undermine it. Michael Cohen’s testimony proved to be no different.

Former president Donald Trump directed his then-attorney Michael Cohen to keep a story of his alleged affair with porn actress Stormy Daniels out of the headlines until after the 2016 election, at which point he would no longer care about it, Cohen testified on Monday during his one-time boss’s “hush-money” criminal trial.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s paralegal testified on Friday that his office deleted from their evidence three pages of phone records between convicted liar Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels’ lawyer Keith Davidson without notifying former President Donald Trump’s legal team, according to reports.

Michael Cohen, the prosecution’s “star witness,” is expected to take the stand on Monday in former President Donald Trump’s business records trial in Manhattan.

Cohen was Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, who is expected to testify about his role in alleged crime Trump is being accused of — falsifying business records to influence the 2016 presidential election.

Can 2024 become any more absurd?

Maybe it can, but we probably do not want to find out. Things have already turned pretty crazy, especially in American politics. Any more of it, and we might lose sight of which side of the line between fiction and reality that we are standing on.

When I read a story about an apparently verified UFO sighting in Las Vegas, including 8-foot-tall beings rummaging through someone’s backyard, my first thought was that the only way 2024 can get any more absurd is if these space aliens make Capitol Hill their next stop. 

U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon may have just indefinitely postponed Donald Trump’s espionage and obstruction trial but that doesn’t mean her federal courtroom in Fort Pierce, Florida will lie dormant over the next few months.

h/t Mauser

Adult film star Stormy Daniels’ claim of not trying to get money from former President Donald Trump was “shattered” during her cross-examination in Manhattan Criminal Court on Friday, legal analyst and attorney Jonathan Turley said on Saturday.

The simple fact is that DA Alvin Bragg can’t prove his case.

Let’s put aside all of the constitutional objections to Alvin Bragg’s prosecution of Donald Trump — objections premised on the shredding of both federal and state due-process guarantees. Trump ought to be acquitted for the simplest of reasons: Prosecutors can’t prove their case — neither the case the grand jury actually charged, 34 counts of felony business-records falsification, nor the case that elected progressive Democratic district attorney Alvin Bragg has imagined into existence, an uncharged conspiracy to steal the 2016 election by suppressing politically damaging information in violation of federal campaign-finance law.

On May 7, Florida Judge Aileen Cannon postponed former President Donald Trump’s classified documents trial after explosive information dropped late Friday afternoon. Several new pieces of evidence indicate it’s even possible federal employees planted classified documents to frame Trump.

Even if what happened isn’t that nefarious — although exactly that scenario has already been deployed against Trump several times — not only could the case be thrown out of court, but some federal lawyers may have risked their licenses for mishandling evidence.

A defiant Stormy Daniels batted back attempts by Donald Trump’s lawyers to poke holes in her story about a 2006 sex tryst with the ex-president — in a fiery clash that riveted jurors in Manhattan court Thursday.

The 12 Manhattanites serving on the jury at Trump’s hush money trial tried to keep a poker face during the often racy and entertaining testimony, looking back and forth at the attorney and the former porn star trading blows as if watching a tennis match.