Noted attorney Alan Dershowitz said Monday that attorneys for former President Donald Trump should file a motion to allow Trump to periodically skip court dates during his Manhattan trial.
Judge Juan Merchan threatened Trump with arrest if he did not attend the trial regarding a $130,000 payout to porn star Stormy Daniels as part of a confidentiality agreement during Trump’s successful run for the White House after Trump asked to attend the Supreme Court’s oral arguments on presidential immunity set for April 25. Dershowitz suggested Trump’s attorneys act immediately to address Merchan’s threat, which he viewed as a form of “election interference.”
“I would hope Trump’s lawyers bring a mandamus right now, at the very least, let Trump out of the courtroom, let him campaign,” Dershowitz told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow. “If he makes a decision that he would like to waive the right to be there, there is nothing in the Constitution which gives the prosecution the right to keep him there. It is only a defendant’s right.”
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“If the defendant chooses to leave the court, whether to go to his son’s graduation from school which apparently the judge didn’t grant or campaign in Pennsylvania, he has the right to do that,” Dershowitz continued. “That is a constitutional case that should be brought immediately.”
Dershowitz earlier tore into the trial, which began Monday with jury selection, labeling it “direct election interference” on the part of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
“The only reason they’re bringing it is to keep Donald Trump out of Pennsylvania… out of Wisconsin, keep him out of Arizona, keep him out of other states,” Dershowitz said. “This is direct election interference. The purpose of this trial is to keep him from campaigning, to give the advantage to Joe Biden and his campaign.”
Trump currently leads President Joe Biden by 0.2% in the RealClearPolitics average of general election polls for a head-to-head matchup, a lead that grows to 1.8% when Green Party candidate Jill Stein and independent candidates Cornel West and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are included.
“I’m not a Trump supporter politically but I know unfairness when I see it,” Dershowitz said. “I would like to see Trump defeated on the merits without election interference, fairly and squarely in a way that he can’t complain, that Republicans who voted for him can’t complain and the New York district attorney is denying the people of America the right to a fair election.”
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