Stormy Daniels courtroom just gets worse and worse
New York's Justice Juan Merchan must like the Red Queen effect in his courtroom in the skeevy trial of President Trump over hush money payments to porn "star" Stormy Daniels, because the insults to justice and fairness just keep coming.
Yesterday brought us this Orwellian picture:
BREAKING - SHOCKING - YOUR REACTION: Judge Juan Merchan claimed Trump might have violated his gag order by shaking his head inside the courtroom while Stormy Daniels was testifying. The judge claimed that by shaking his head and reportedly 'audibly cursing', Trump might have… pic.twitter.com/Ay0QwAT3rX
— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) May 8, 2024
Trump didn't say a thing here, and already Merchan is charging that he violated a gag order. Trump's not only not allowed to say anything in his own defense, he's not allowed to react just when an obvious liar on the stand, porn "star" Stormy Daniels, spews new tripe for the courtroom. See, everything one side says is true and good, and everything Trump says can only be punished.
This is beyond disgusting, and does support my earlier argument that this woke Justice is itching for a chance to throw Trump in jail before elections.
Meanwhile, Merchan was very much a man of double standards, considering who he allowed to speak and what he allowed to be said in that kangaroo house he's running in Manhattan:
.@AndrewCMcCarthy: Stormy Daniels testimony only meat to embarrass Trumphttps://t.co/FVjyyEsy07
— John Catsimatidis (@JCats2013) May 8, 2024
None of this had anything to do with the bookkeeping argument that is at the heart of the case, whether Trump improperly paid out hush-money to Daniels as 'legal expenses' when he should have called them campaign expenses, because the 'underlying crime' was that he sought the presidency and wanted to sway the election.
Nope, the justice just allowed Daniels to spew the gross graphic details of her claimed encounter, which she said didn't happen earlier, as if he enjoyed all that storytelling, and better still, wanted to see it get out to the public to damage Trump's current presidential campaign. Electoral interference, anyone?
It's disgusting because Merchan put on such a pissy show about irrelevant testimony when he gagged President Trump's chief witness, the man whose testimony could exonerate him, former FEC chairman Bradley Smith, claiming it was irrelevant.
Well, this was really irrelevant, but the justice had his double standards intact -- irrelevant testimony is fine when it helps the prosecution, and bad when it helps Trump, except that Smith's testimony would have been far from irrelevant. Merchan just declares irrelevancy when it helps Trump, when it doesn't, he tunes in and lets Daniels keep on spewing.
Daniels, by the way, was particularly non-credible as a witness, given her history of lying, which is about par for a woman who sells her body for profit. Her claim to being a damsel in distress, blacking out from all the stress of being with Trump in a bedroom is laughable, given the decades of porno she's engaged in, from some of its most grotesque 'stars.' Spare us, except that Merchan wanted her to keep talking.
The sheer grossness of the Daniels testimony was indeed nothing but a campaign contribution to Joe Biden, attempting to turn voters against him.
But it also demolishes their core argument that the payoff was indeed a campaign contribution and needed to be reported as such with the FEC.
Mickey Kaus explains it very well:
RIght. But it may have badly undermined prosecution. The sex details were personally, primally humiliating--showing Trump had ample reason to want Stormy to stay silent even if he wasn't running for office. That means the hush $ may well not have been a "campaign expenditure"… https://t.co/FMTKvLVP65
— Mickey Kaus (@kausmickey) May 8, 2024
Her story was so disgusting that anyone, anywhere, not just a presidential candidate, would want to pay her off, extortionate or not, to shut her up. So it couldn't have been a campaign contribution we have here, just a bid to get this person to stop spewing.
It all goes to show how sorry this court case is, and the wretched courtroom in which it's being tried. This is what a kangaroo court looks like, a court that says verdict first, charges later. That's what Merchan's court has descended into and he needs to be off the bench as a judicial failure because of it.
Image: Screen shot from The View video, via YouTube