(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Trump has some quibbles with his guilty verdicts [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-06-01 Donald Trump and his followers are struggling to cope with the unanimous verdict delivered against the former president and Republican Party overlord Thursday by 12 jurors who took only a few hours to determine that Trump was guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records and at least one count of stinking out the room, which also should be a felony. Trump’s delivery has been slightly muted since that deflating, sobering moment when he was finally confronted with the truth he knew and feared: His lies and bullshit won’t help in a criminal court if there’s enough evidence of his guilt. Of course, there was plenty of evidence of Trump’s guilt because 1) he did in fact commit the crimes, and 2) despite his general adherence to Mob “best practices,” Trump’s arrogance and sense of impunity eventually made him sloppy. Yet the whining from Trump and his GOP hostages/minions about a rigged trial persists. The crooked judge wouldn’t let us call our witnesses. George Soros controls Alvin Bragg. It was a very unfair witch hunt! And do you know the corrupt judge isn’t from this country and therefore hates Trump? Two of my favorite legal analyts — Andrew Weissmann and Lisa Rubin — were on Lawrence O’Donnell’s MSNBC show Friday night to eloquently and forcefully provide a dose of reality to the three or four MAGA cultists tuning in. They were so good that I separated each into their own videos below and included separate transcripts. Here’s Weissmann in response to a comment from O’Donnell about how Trump insists now — and will continue to insist! — that he wanted to testify in the trial he just lost like a dog. Weissmann has a more than reasonable doubt about the convicted felon’s claim. (Note: Weissmann’s comments end at 3:20. But while I’m able to start a video where I want to, I still can’t figure out how to end one where I want, even though I’ve scrupulously followed the simple steps on three different instructional videos. I think YouTube is rigged.) Andrew Weissman Donald Trump had a right to testify. Judge Merchan made sure he knew it. Because early in the trial when Donald Trump was saying because of the gag order he could not testify, Merchan wanted to make sure that Donald Trump, the former president of the United States, understood the rights that any defendant has. And it is a right that is personal to the defendant. It is not a right that is exercised by defense counsel, as all of those defense counsel know, it is defendant’s choice to testify or not to testify. So it is simply a lie if he says I was prohibited from testifying or I wanted to testify. If he wanted to he could have hopped on the stand and testified. He could have called [longtime bodyguard] Keith Schiller if he wanted to, he could have called [currently imprisoned Trump Organization CFO] Allen Weisselberg. In the same way, he made the choice to call [Rudy Giuliani’s personal attorney Bob] Costello — not the best choice in the world, given how that went. He also was free to cross-examine David Pecker [former CEO of the company that owned the National Enquirer] and to say he was a liar. He did not. David Pecker, as Lisa said, was close to the defendant. He was a key witness. He could have cross-examined [former Trump communications director] Hope Hicks and said she was a liar. He did not. She provided equally damning testimony. The same thing for Jeff McConney, and on and on. What do all of those witnesses who did testify have in common? They were all people loyal to and aligned with Donald Trump. So for the people who say this was a witch hunt and it's unfair, and it's a sham, these are Donald Trump's friends and allies and employees who testified. They were not even claimed to be lying by Donald Trump, and he had a choice to testify and to call witnesses in addition to Bob Costello, and he chose not to. Now here’s Lisa Rubin responding to comments made on CNN Thursday night by Trump lead defense attorney Todd Blanche in what was a painfully low-energy, dissembling performance that is sure to get him fired by the insurrectionist-in-chief because he didn’t tell Kaitlan Collins that she’s fake news and a disgrace and should try smiling more. Lisa Rubin I saw that clip earlier today, Lawrence, in part because Andrew called my attention to it through a tweet. And the first thing that struck me was the arrogance of, because this is America, or because we live in America, we don't carry the burden of proof. And yes, that's true. They didn't have the burden of proof. But if they wanted to show the jury that the prosecution didn't meet its burden, they had any number of means to try and demonstrate that and their answer was solely Bob Costello. As for the rest of his statement, he told on himself when he said it's not our job to fill the holes in the prosecution's case. That's a concession that had they called Keith Schiller, or even the convicted perjurer Alan Weisselberg — on his second stint on Rikers Island right now — that those people would have aided the prosecution. Saying it's not our job to fill the prosecution's holes was like a staggering admission from Todd Blanche. I just was gobsmacked by seeing that interview. It was always obvious to me why the defense didn’t want to call Schiller or Weisselberg as witnesses: Their testimony (if not perjured) would severely damage the defense, much like Costello’s emails about not making it look like Trump and Rudy were in on controlling former Trump personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, who served time for the very conspiracy that led to the charges against Trump and his eventual conviction. But I still don’t know why the prosecution didn’t subpoena either of them. I guess they decided — correctly, it turned out — that they could win the case with the evidence and witnesses they already had. (From Project Orange: Saving Democracy From the Trump-MAGA Cult) [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/6/1/2244217/-Trump-has-some-quibbles-with-his-guilty-verdict?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/