One of the lines of complaint leveled against the verdict against Donald Trump in the Bragg hush-money case is to blame the jury, highlighting the deep-blue nature of the Manhattan electorate.
Now, it’s obviously the case that a Manhattan jury is going to be less friendly to Trump than a jury in other precincts of the country. And it would have been heartwarming for even a single juror to see through the fraud of this prosecution. It certainly would have been prudent for the jurors not to put their faith in the word of Michael Cohen.
But the simple reality is that jurors only decide the facts based on the evidence presented to them, and they follow the law as it’s presented by the judge. Most of the heavy lifting toward getting Trump convicted was done by the prosecutor and the judge. That’s who violated Trump’s Fifth Amendment rights against multiplicitous indictments by breaking an 11-installment payment into 34 separate felony counts, including distinct charges for the invoice, check, and recording of each payment. That’s who violated Trump’s Sixth Amendment rights by allowing un-cross-examined testimony about the fine paid by American Media Incorporated (AMI). That’s who, in fact, inundated the jury with tales about AMI and David Pecker that had nothing to do with the 34 business records at issue. That’s who refused to let Trump call an expert witness on what counts as a legitimate campaign expense under federal election law, while introducing (and emphasizing in the final charge to the jury) Cohen’s plea deal and AMI’s non-prosecution agreement as if they were proof of what counts as a legitimate campaign expense under federal election law. That’s who allowed the case to go forward on the theory that private lies to Trump’s own checkbook in 2017 somehow defrauded voters in 2016, even though the records were never seen by anybody before 2018 — and were never intended to be shown to anyone. It’s not the jury’s fault that this steaming heap of legal nonsense and irrelevancy was presented to them as if this were a real criminal case.