Editor’s Note: This is the second of two columns on how Judge Juan Merchan has allowed prosecutors from Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s office to prove a federal campaign-finance crime against former president Donald Trump by relying on blatantly inadmissible evidence — the guilty pleas of Michael Cohen and a non-prosecution agreement David Pecker struck with the Justice Department. The first column is here.
In yesterday’s column, I contended that Judge Juan Merchan has collaborated with prosecutors to spread before the jury in his Manhattan courtroom evidence that is blatantly inadmissible against the defendant, former president Donald Trump — specifically, Michael Cohen’s guilty pleas to two Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) crimes, which he claimed were established by payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal for non-disclosure agreements (NDAs); and David Pecker’s non-prosecution agreement with the Justice Department, which he executed out of fear that he’d be indicted over the McDougal NDA (he wasn’t, although his former company, AMI, agree to pay the Federal Election Commission a fine — a disposition that allowed AMI to get out from under the federal government’s investigation so it could sell the National Enquirer.)
Comments