I have read and listened to many sources of legal opinions on this case from Johnathan Turley, Alan Dershowitz, and others how it was handled improperly.
You might want to check your sources, because most of these are not true. Let's break it down...
CNN senior legal analyst
Elie Honig has criticized the New York criminal case against Trump as an "unjustified mess" and argued prosecutors "contorted the law" to get the former president.
Honig's argument basically boils down to 'No politician has even been charged with these crimes, so no politician ever should'. It is wrapped up in a lot of fancy words, but that is what their argument is. It is spurious at best.
Honig also explained another appellate issue, arguing that it was unprecedented to have Bragg, a county prosecutor, enforcing federal law.
And he didn't. Honig uses some fancy rhetoric to make is sound like he did, but then states flat out in the very article you linked that they are all NY State laws. Honig states:
"In fact, no state prosecutor — in New York, or Wyoming, or anywhere — has ever charged federal election laws as a direct or predicate state crime, against anyone, for anything." Which is absolutely true, because even in this case it didn't happen.
Honig later states that the NY state law is being elevated by another crime and that "
according to prosecutors, the ‘another crime’ is a New York State election-law violation" No federal election laws found.
Honig used your confirmation bias to make you think he said something he didn't. It is a fancy way to lie by telling the truth.
CNN legal analyst Elie Honig has previously said that this case was legally dubious, uniquely targeted Trump and could not succeed outside of an anti-Trump district.
That is pure opinion, and we can never know if it is true or not. What we can know is that Trump's lawyers participated in jury selection, that 12 jurors that were jointly selected came to a unanimous decision, and they found him guilty on all 34 counts. That does not sound like something that would happen if the case was ambiguous.
CNN legal correspondent Paula Reid said Sunday that while any appeals process was unlikely to play out before the election, "there are some legitimate questions to be appealed here."
Erin Burnett, a CNN host, asked former prosecutor Mark O'Mara during her show on Thursday about Trump's odds on appeal. "I actually think they’re pretty good because there are a number of significant issues [with] the way this trial was handled," O'Mara said.
All of these is pure opinion with out any reasoning given. I can dismiss them with the same reasoning.
"There is an appeal that could have legs," Arlo Devlin-Brown, a former federal prosecutor in Manhattan,
told Politico. "The combination of the prosecution offering three different theories as to how the false records could have violated state election law, limited instruction on what some of those theories required, and the fact that jurors were not required to agree on which had been proven creates a real issue for the appeal," Devlin-Brown said.
I think this is the one that will actually be appealed. I also have a bit of a problem with this one. Basically the jury had to decide if he was guilty of a crime he was never charged with to decide if he was guilty of this one. Apparently the NY law is written specifically to allow that, so the NY Supreme Court will probably uphold the verdict. This is the one I think will go to SCOTUS. If so, that will be an interesting trial. If SCOTUS find in Trumps favor it will be a seismic shift in legal theory as there are many, many laws written that way.
It will basically wipe out most white collar crimes and throw our financial institutes into chaos as it basically becomes legal to embezzle.
Acting Supreme Court justice
Juan Merchan was handpicked for this case rather than randomly selected. This is only the latest in a litany of Trump cases where Merchan has meted out tough rulings against Trump and his organization.
This is a conspiracy theory. There is no evidence of this, and all parties involved have said that he was randomly chosen. The only reason this is being said is because he handled some Trump cases before, but with the number of cases Trump generates in the courts it would be odd if he hadn't.
We learned later that Merchan has contributed to a group to stop the GOP and Trump. Merchan’s daughter is also a Democratic organizer who has helped raise millions against Trump and the GOP and for the Democrats.
$35 dollars. It is a bad look I agree. His daughter does not matter. That is long settled. But I don't think that alone is enough to overturn the verdict. At most he will be given a reprimand for it.
What is equally disturbing is the failure of Merchan to protect the rights of the defendant and what even critics admit were distinctly pro-prosecution rulings in the trial. It is not just the appearance of a conflict with Judge Merchan but a record of highly biased decisions.
Everything I've seen says that Merchan went above and beyond to protect the rights of the defendant. He bent court rules several times in Trump's favor, and was extremely easy on Trump. Trump was treated better than any other defendant would have been, and his only complaints are that he did not get enough special privilege. All of the arguments to the contrary are complete fabrications by Trump to try to act like the victim. Which is probably why you didn't list a single actual item that Merchan did that failed to protect Trumps rights or due process.
The Federal Election Commission likewise found no basis for a civil fine.
It would have been a surprise if they did. The FEC is about as toothless as they come.
With no federal prosecution, Bragg decided to use an unprecedented criminal theory not only to zap a dead misdemeanor into life (after the expiration of the statute of limitation) but to allow him to try violations of not only federal election law but also federal taxation violations. In other words, the Justice Department would not prosecute federal violations, so Bragg effectively did it in state court.
As has already been stated none of the charges were reliant on any federal laws. Bragg did opine that some federal laws were broken, but his prosecution was not based on any of them.
Judge Merchan allowed a torrent of immaterial and prejudicial evidence to be introduced into the trial by the prosecution. That included testimony from porn actress
Stormy Daniels that went into details about having sex with Trump. She included a clear suggestion that Trump raped her.
This will be brought up on appeal, but my understanding is that Merchan allowed the testimony because it directly went to the reason Trump committed the crime, and he did stop her from providing too much detail, and he did strike the parts that were objected to as prejudicial. Basically, he did everything required to keep her testimony to the relevant parts of the trial. This is not like the Weinstein trial, Stormy did not say she was raped, she only said she was ashamed of having sex with Trump afterwards.
Merchan also barred the use of a legal expert, former FEC Chair Brad Smith, who was prepared to testify that such payments cannot be viewed as federal election violations and would not affect the election even if they were considered contributions, since they would not even have had to be reported until after the election.
This is a complete fabrication. Merchan actually allowed the witness, but on the condition that the prosecution could also call their own witness. The defense decided they would rather not have that witness than allow the prosecution to have one as well.
Judge in Trump’s hush money trial did not bar campaign finance expert from testifying for defense
Multiple choice for the undisclosed secondary crime that didn't have to be Unanimous. The Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized that the requirement of unanimity in criminal convictions is sacrosanct in our system. While there was unanimity that the business records were falsified to hide or further a second crime, there was no express finding of what that crime may have been. We still don't know specifically what that was.
This one will be interesting, rationally since he is not being charged with those other crimes it does not matter what they were, only if each individual juror is convinced that at least one happened.
Think of it this way: I show a group of people a picture of a parking lot filled with cars, and ask them to tell me 'Yes' if there is at least 1 black car in that parking lot and 'No' if there is not. It seems crazy to require that they all point to the same black car for the 'Yes' to be the correct answer.
Maybe everybody else is wrong and you guys are right... I guess we will see in time.
It is not everyone, only your carefully curated selection.