Yes, it should have been thrown out of court to begin with.
Trump Found Guilty – a Travesty of Justice for America
https://mishtalk.com/politics/trump-found-guilty-a-travesty-of-justice-for-america/
Trump was found guilty of a crime, but can anyone say what it is? Prosecutorial misconduct is dripping. It’s the judge, not Trump who belongs in prison.
The Wall Street Journal Editorial Boards discusses
A Guilty Verdict for Trump and Its Consequences for the Country
Twelve New York jurors have found Donald Trump guilty of falsifying business records, a total of 34 felony counts, in history’s first criminal conviction of a former President.
What crime was that? Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg eventually settled on a New York election law, rarely enforced, that prohibits conspiracies to promote political candidates “by unlawful means.”
Yet what “unlawful means” did this alleged conspiracy use? The DA’s argument was that there were three: First, the hush money was effectively an illegally large donation to Mr. Trump’s campaign. Second, more business filings were falsified, including bank records for Mr. Cohen’s wire transfer to Ms. Daniels. Third, false statements were made to tax authorities, since Mr. Trump’s repayment of Mr. Cohen was structured as income and “grossed up” to cover the taxes he would need to pay on it.
Did Mr. Trump falsify business records in 2017 to cover up an illegal conspiracy to elect him in 2016, whose unlawful means included false information in Mr. Cohen’s tax return for 2017?
A help to Mr. Bragg’s prosecution is that the jurors were instructed that as long as they were unanimous that Mr. Trump was guilty of falsifying business records to aid or cover up an illegal conspiracy to get him elected, they didn’t all have to agree about which theory of the “unlawful means”. [Mish: Please read this paragraph over and over.]
The conviction sets a precedent of using legal cases, no matter how sketchy, to try to knock out political opponents, including former Presidents. Mr. Trump has already vowed to return the favor. If Democrats felt like cheering Thursday when the guilty verdict was read, they should think again. Mr. Bragg might have opened a new destabilizing era of American politics, and no one can say how it will end.
No Need to Be Unanimous
For some reason this Tweet wont expand here but please consider this Tweet on the judge’s instructions regarding unanimous opinion:
https://x.com/Shreddick0/status/1795848967739089152