Posted originally on Jun 27, 2024 By Martin Armstrong 

QUESTION: Looking at the United States from Europe, what has been done to Trump seems political. Do you think Trump will be vindicated by the Supreme Court?

SK

ANSWER: I have often stated that New York City is a cesspool of corruption. The conviction of Trump and even the gag order imposed by this outrageous prosecutor pretend to be an “acting judge” who should be not just disbarred but should be thrown in prison for treason going against everything the Constitution stood for. He is not just a disgrace to the legal profession but to an American citizen. The outrageous Judge Juan Merchan is restricting Trump’s Free Speech and still interfering in everyone’s right to a fair election. He has lifted the Gag Order ahead of the debate but only concerning the witnesses against him. He has maintained the gag order against the Court, prosecutor, and the jurors.

The case is over. There is absolutely NO CONSTITUTIONAL authority for such a restriction on his free speech. In Florida, this questionable special prosecutor has also sought a gag order to prevent Trump from speaking about that case in the debate. This is NOT the America I grew up in, and it has shown the entire world that the American Justice system is disgusting, corrupt, and just as Thrasymachus warned more than 2,000 years ago – JUSTICE is always just the self-interest of those in power. I am so glad I did not become a lawyer, for I hate hypocrisy, and they would have summarily executed me long ago.

The Supreme Court has just handed down two fundamental decisions, Gonzalez v. Trevino and Erlinger v. United States, that CONFIRM that Trump’s conviction on these 34 counts should be thrown out. If the NY Court of Appeals refuses to do so, New York should be expelled as part of the United States and thrown out for good.

This guilty verdict on 34 counts of falsifying business records relating to a hush money payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election is so outrageous that if it were brought against Biden, I would say the same thing. I would love to see this fake judge put Trump in jail. The sentencing will be determined on July 11 by Judge Juan Merchan, just days before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee from July 15-18, where he’s expected to accept the party’s nomination.

This is clearly election interference. Our model has been targeting a Panic Cycle during the week of the Republic Convention. While we see that wee as turning points in Europe, it does not appear to reflect a Panic Cycle, implying that this may be related more to domestic issues rather than international ones. I would love to see Judge Juan Merchan either imprison Trump or impose probation that interferes with his ability to campaign and travel throughout the nation. Often, probation restricts the freedom to travel.

New York City is a vile place and truly a cesspool of legal corruption. When I asked a New York lawyer why no banker has EVER been charged for blowing up the economy with the manipulations, he replied: “You don’t shit where you eat!  Trump’s case has shown the world WHY you should not do business in New York City – EVER!!!!! Manhattan has become a legal cesspool where prosecutors routinely use the legal system to hunt down famous people for personal notoriety and attack political rivals to undermine your opponent.

Kara McGee was dismissed as a juror. She explained the questions she was asked to qualify as a juror. She explained that one of the questions they asked was: “Do you have opinions about the ability for a former sitting president to be tried in a court of law? I think the way people answered showed how they felt about the case,” she said. “The other one was: Do you have any opinions about legal limits for campaign finance donation amounts? Which I believe was another one that was kinda meant to gauge feelings about the particular case.”

This judge effectively ensured the jury would find Trump guilty and failed to instruct them that the jury has the ULTIMATE power to decide if the law is even Constitutionally valid. In 1735, a New York jury acquitted publisher John Peter Zenger of seditious libel in what the National Constitution Center correctly calls ” an early example of jury nullification .” Judge Juan Merchan falsely instructed that the jury lacked that power, thereby rendering its guilty verdict constitutionally invalid. Juries have always had the power to acquit against the claimed evidence, and instructing them otherwise violates both the Sixth Amendment and Due Process Clause of the 5th and 14th Amendments.

The jury instructions given by Acting Judge Merchan told the jurors that “if the People satisfy their burden of proof, you must find the defendant guilty.” This language is plainly unconstitutional and a violation of every principle behind the purpose of the jury. Compare this to the jury instructions in the Hunter Biden prosecution, where the judge told the jurors they “should” convict if the state carried its burden, not that they MUST. This illustrates how corrupt New York City really is and WHY you should not even have an account with anyone in New York City – there is no justice for all.

The most famous trial where a jury stood up refusing to find the defendant guilty in the face of a corrupt government was that of William Penn  (1644-1718), the founder of Pennsylvania. Penn was the leader of the Quakers in London, and you can see why people fled to America, just as people I know who fled Eastern European communism and came to America remark how the United States is doing the very same thing to people that they fled from.

At this point, the judge became so enraged, as I would expect from Judge Juan Merchan, and sent the jury back to reconsider their verdict. When they returned with the same verdict, the court criticized the jury’s leader, Bushnell, and demanded “a verdict that the court will accept, and you shall be locked up without meat, drink, fire, and tobacco…We will have a verdict by the help of God or you will starve for it.”

After that, the jury was sent back three more times but returned with the same verdict. Finally, the jury refused to reconsider. The judge then fined each jury member forty marks and ordered them imprisoned until the fine was paid. Penn and Mead went to prison anyway, held in contempt for obeying the bailiff’s order that they put on their hats.

Also, look closely at the outrageous UNAMERICAN jury instruction given by Judge Juan Merchan, which allowed for a nonunanimous decision on the secondary crime that transformed a misdemeanor into a felony. The first thing you learn about criminal law is that a jury MUST find you guilty unanimously beyond a shadow of a doubt. This pretend prosecutor, who is only an acting judge, has rejected the very basic foundation of criminal law to ensure that Trump would be found guilty. If you answer such a question in law school as this judge did, you would NEVER graduate.

These two decisions, just rendered by the Supreme Court, further demonstrate that this Acting Judge is a total disgrace to the rule of law and should be disbarred.

Gonzalez v. Trevino

In Gonzalez v. Trevino, Sylvia Gonzalez was a city council member in Texas who claimed that her 2019 arrest on charges that she tampered with government records was in retaliation for her criticism of the city manager. The Supreme Court’s ruling granted Gonzalez another opportunity to pursue her retaliation claim in a lower court, stating that the lower court had an “overly cramped view” of a key precedent case. The criminal charges against Gonzales were thrown out before trial, unlike what this judge should have done in the Trump case.

This is Selective Prosecution, which Trump has argued and was summarily dismissed, even though no case like Bragg’s appears to have ever been brought before, which is the cornerstone of this argument. To establish Selective Prosecution requires a prosecution of only one defendant when there are others who are similarly situated, but are not facing prosecution. It is like driving 80 miles an hour in traffic, but you have a Ferrari, so the cop targets only you when everyone else is doing the same speed. This violated the Equal Protection Clause.

For example, in Wayte v US, 470 US 598, 608 (1985) and US v Steele 461 F2 1148, 1151-52 (9th Cir 1972), a defendant was selectively prosecuted for exercising 1st Amendment rights in opposition to the census, and the government failed to justify its selectivity. Trump was selectively prosecuted without question.

Erlinger v. United States

In Erlinger v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that the Fifth and Sixth Amendments required a unanimous jury to determine beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant’s past offenses were committed on separate occasions. This case dealt with unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon with prior burglaries. The court held that a jury MUST decide this issue unanimously under a standard of beyond reasonable doubt. Under New York law, a jury must be unanimous on the existence of each and every element of the crime but not on every detail of how the crime was committed. This is dancing between the raindrops.

Now look at Acting Judge Merchan’s handling of the Trump case, where the jurors could disagree on key aspects of the crime yet still convict the defendant. Merchan’s jury instructions informed the jury that they needed to unanimously find Trump guilty of each of the 34 felony counts but did NOT need to be unanimous on the specific ways the law was allegedly broken. This meant the jurors did not need to unanimously agree that there was a crime and just declare that some secondary crime was involved.

These two decisions alone in Gonzales and Erlinger demonstrate that this Acting Judge violated the basic tenets of criminal law and the Constitution. This Erlinger case made it absolutely clear that for more serious punishment based on a prior crime of violence, a jury and not a judge should make that finding because a jury must find unanimously each and every element of an offense. Merchan permitted a non-unanimous finding in which the means were unlawful under 17-152, but that the jury find elements unanimously but need not be unanimous in findings of manners and means. This is a grey area.

I seriously doubt that Trump will be successful in appealing anything in the New York legal system. Constitutionally, I still believe that the verdict should eventually overturned. What was done to Trump is an INTERNATIONAL WARNING that the courts in New York are NEVER to be trusted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!