During closing arguments in Donald Trump's hush money/falsified business records trial on Tuesday, May 28, defense lawyer Todd Blanche suggested to jurors that Trump could go to jail if they find him guilty — a comment that Justice Juan Merchan attacked as way out of line.
Merchan chastised Merchan vehemently, telling the Trump attorney, "That was outrageous, Mr. Blanche…. Someone who's been an attorney as long as you have knows that is highly inappropriate."
The following day — with jury deliberations only hours away — former federal prosecutor and ex-FBI general counsel Andrew Weissmann appeared on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" and emphasized that Merchan was right to admonish Blanche.
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Weissmann told hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski and their colleagues Willie Geist and Jonathan Lemire, "Everybody knows — whether you're a former prosecutor, a former defense lawyer, maybe not even a lawyer at all — that when you are giving an address in front of the jury that's deciding guilt or not guilt, you do not raise the subject of sentencing. It is not for the jury. And so, as Judge Merchan said to Todd Blanche, he said there is no way that this wasn't intentional. And Todd Blanche actually had no response to that."
Weissmann continued, "So clearly, it was a strategy to make it harder for the jury to think about a guilty verdict, thinking they were sending the defendant to jail."
The former federal prosecutor went on to say that Merchan asked the jury to ignore Blanche's sentencing-related comments.
"And so, Judge Merchan wanted to give an instruction, and there was no objection, at that point, by the defense that was going to really take that issue away, because the bell had been rung by Todd Blanche," Weissmann told the "Morning Joe" panel. "And so, the judge said: Not only are you not to consider it — but he went a step further in a way that was unusual to say: and you should know jail is not required here. So, he's like, don't think about it, but essentially saying: to the extent that that is now in your head, you need to remember there may be no jail here because it's not required. I will decide."
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Weissmann added, "So, I think the judge was trying to do everything he could to unring the bell that was improperly rung by Todd Blanche in his summation."
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Watch the full video below or at this link.
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