Former President George W. Bush Department of Justice (DOJ) official John Yoo, Thursday on Fox Business, shared his insights on how he thinks Judge Juan Merchan is mishandling President-elect Donald Trump’s case.
During an appearance on “The Evening Edit,” Yoo criticized Merchan for delaying actions that Yoo says could resolve the trial immediately, such as dismissing the case or ordering a new trial, in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s July 1 decision that identified flaws in the proceedings. Yoo said that Merchan’s reluctance to speed up the trial processes appears politically motivated.
“I think Judge Merchan’s quest to get his white whale, Donald Trump, is what we’re going to see tomorrow. He’s revealing the real political nature of what he and District Attorney Alvin Bragg in New York City have been up to all along, because he’s already said he’s not going to sentence Trump to jail,” Yoo told Elizabeth MacDonald. “But, he still wants to sentence Trump with just 11 days before Trump becomes president, so there’s no time for Trump to effectively appeal this case.”
Yoo said that this move was calculated to damage Trump’s legacy and future.
“We all know that Merchan is going to either have to throw the case out or hold a new jury trial at some point, because the Supreme Court on July 1 said that this trial was flawed. And so what Merchan would do, why I say it’s political, is because he’s dragged his feet for six months when he could have done any of these other things. So that he could ensure that Trump would be the first felon president in our history,” the former DOJ official said.
Host MacDonald then said there were discrepancies in the prosecution’s approach. She said that the case, often minimized to a misdemeanor level, has escalated to federal felonies under the guise of campaign finance violations.
“It’s like parking tickets that Alvin Bragg, the DA, ramped up into federal felonies because he cited campaign finance violations,” MacDonald said. “You know the thing about that, John, he never proved that in any which way, shape, or form this changed anybody’s vote.”
“Yes, actually, that’s another reason, the one you just gave, why this whole trial was done in an unconstitutional manner,” Yoo said to MacDonald.
Yoo also said that the DOJ and the Federal Election Commission (FEC) previously decided not to pursue similar allegations.
“That’s not up to any sort of two-bit prosecutor in New York City to try to re-litigate the whole election out of 2016. The Justice Department looked into this, the FEC looked into this. They decided not to bring any cases, and so what Murchand and Bragg did is they tried to take, as you said, this accounting law and tried to turn it,” Yoo said.
A Manhattan jury found Trump guilty in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records linked to a nondisclosure agreement with adult film actress Stormy Daniels. Merchan said there are no legal barriers to sentencing and summoned Trump to court on Jan. 10. He said that delivering a sentence post-inauguration would be “less desirable.”
Featured Image Credit: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America
