George Washington University law school professor Jonathan Turley blasted the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office’s criminal case against former President Donald Trump. During an interview where he discussed the opening statements of Trump’s hush money trial which began on Monday, Turley called the case an “embarrassment” to the justice system.
Pointing to a recent poll in which only 35% of respondents thought that Trump’s actions that led to the case was “illegal,” Turley pointed out that “we would end up with the same 35%” if a polling was held on whether Trump was plagued on something as random as “the bubonic plague.”
We have these hard numbers on either end of the poll when it comes to Trump. They don’t move no matter what the subject is. What’s clear is in this case, Trump is right. I mean, this is an embarrassment. I mean the fact that we are actually talking about this case being presented in a New York courtroom leaves me in utter disbelief,” he stated.
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“I mean, the arguments today did in fact capture all the problems here. You know, you had this misdemeanor under state law where, that had run out, this is going back to relate it to the 2016 election, and they zapped it back into life by alleging that there was a campaign finance violation under the federal laws that doesn’t exist. The Department of Justice doesn’t view it this way,” he added.
Continuing with his slamming of the case, Turley said, “On top of that, you got these tough factual issues that were laid out well by the Trump team. Saying someone else designated this as a legal expense. He was actually paid far in excess of this because this was a legal account. Keep in mind, this is what Hillary Clinton’s people did. Remember, when they funded the Steele dossier — which they denied to reporters — they put it as a legal expense. And then they fought the eventual fine they received from the federal government saying that it was a legal expense. Now you’ve got some of the same Democrats supporting this bizarre theory.”
Turley’s remarks come as the opening statements in the trial began this week. Turley was not the only one who criticized the case against Trump on Monday. One of the former president’s attorneys, Will Scharf, called the trial the “first of the Biden show trials.”
“I think this is the first of the Biden show trials playing out you in front of every American around the country. I think Americans see these prosecutions for what they are, which is politically motivated in an effort at election interference. I think President Trump’s absolutely right,” Scharf told Fox News on Monday.
“I’d also say that I’m limited in what I can say about this subject because of the wildly unconstitutional, unilateral gag order that Judge Merchan placed against President Trump and his team that prevents us from raising some of the very real issues that have come to light in court papers. And that just infect this prosecution from its initiation through to the present day,” he added.
