The judge in Donald Trump's legal expense trial is trying to find a loophole to the unanimity requirement to convict the former president, take him off the campaign trail, and try to interfere with the 2024 presidential election, says Trump attorney Jesse Binnall.
"What I think was really telling today was the way [Judge Juan Merchan] instructed the jury, and even the fact that the judge is not allowing the jury to bring the instructions back into the deliberation room, which I think is really unfortunate," Binnall told Newsmax's "Newsline."
The jury in New York trial ended its first day of deliberations without a verdict but asked to rehear potentially crucial testimony about attorney Michael Cohen's $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels at the heart of the history-making case.
"His instructions are rather incredible in that he has gone away from one of the hallmarks of our justice system, which is the requirement of unanimity among the jury that they cannot convict someone of a crime unless they unanimously find that a crime was committed," Binnall continued. "And, in this case, the judge is trying to find a loophole to the unanimity requirement, which again just shows time and time again with this judge that he is not out in this for justice.
"He is in this in order to try to convict Donald Trump, to take him off the campaign trail, and try to interfere with the 2024 presidential election."
Trump is charged with 34 counts of his company falsifying business records in connection to Cohen's legal services of potentially striking embarrassing stories about Trump during his 2016 Republican presidential election campaign.
Merchan told the jury that to convict Trump on any given charge, they will have to find unanimously — that is, all 12 jurors must agree — the former president with knowlege and intent had his company create a fraudulent entry in his company's records.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
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