Former Judge Andrew Napolitano told Newsmax on Tuesday that former President Donald Trump's ongoing criminal trial in New York City "is a novel case" that Trump should be allowed to publicly comment on.
Trump was fined $9,000 on Tuesday after the judge presiding over his case found him in contempt of court for repeatedly violating a gag order that restricts what Trump can say about the witnesses and others involved in the case. The former president faces 34 counts of falsifying business records to obscure payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels prior to the 2016 election. He has pleaded not guilty on all charges.
Napolitano said on "National Report" that "you can't blame Donald Trump for saying what he said" about the case despite the gag order because "this is a novel case."
He added, "No one's ever been prosecuted under this theory before, that by committing bookkeeping errors, you somehow committed a felony."
Napolitano went on to say that Trump "sort of summarized the defense position in a very accurate and adequate way. The question is, Will the jury accept this when his lawyers make this very summary to them at the end of the case?"
The former judge noted that after two weeks of testimony, the "government has not shown any criminal activity, it has consumed a week of time explaining how tabloids used to work in the old days when there were tabloids, and they were killing certain stories and advancing certain other stories."
Napolitano predicted that the first witness on Tuesday, bank executive Gary Farro, "will again not manifest any criminal activity or even alleged criminal activity on the part of the former president."
He added that this testimony will likely be "a little bit of boring, tedious stuff that the government feels it needs to explain to the jury."
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Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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