Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard Law professor emeritus, has been in courtrooms all over the world, but told Newsmax he's never seen another judge act in the way that Judge Juan Merchan, who is presiding over former President Donald Trump's trial in Manhattan, did this week when he threatened to strike the testimony of the case's only defense witness.
"When nobody's in the courtroom, when he throws the journalists out, and when he throws the jury out, his true self comes to the fore," Dershowitz told Newsmax's "Newsline" Wednesday, while describing the judge's threat to strike the testimony of Robert Costello, a former legal adviser for onetime Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, because didn't like how Costello was looking at him.
"He just reminded me of the movie 'Taxi Driver,'" Dershowitz, who remained in the courtroom Tuesday after the jury and media were ordered out.
"'You looking at me?' to the witness,'" Dershowitz said, describing Merchan's words to Costello. "'If you ever look at me again, if you ever bat your eyes again, I will strike all your testimony.' I've never seen anything like that. I've been courtrooms in China, in Russia, in England and Italy and Israel, and I've never quite seen the judge [like him]."
Dershowitz added that Merchan has been making "terrible rulings and showing extreme bias," particularly when the media is not present, and that's why the Trump trial should have been televised, as should "every trial in America."
Cameras are in the courtroom to allow the proceedings to be transmitted to the overflow room, he added, so the question is whether the feed should be available to the general public.
"What is Judge Merchan hiding?" Dershowitz said. "This trial should be televised so that we can make our own judgment about the credibility of witnesses and about the lack of bias or bias of the judge."
Meanwhile, Dershowitz said it's "ridiculous" that Tuesday was the court's last day in session until after Memorial Day.
"This case could have been sent to the jury before the weekend," he said. "I just don't understand the judge's thinking."
Further, Dershowitz said that the delay allows Cohen's testimony to "go into a distant memory," but "any rational person would understand that not only was Cohen lying before but he was lying right to us."
Cohen also has a financial interest in the outcome of the case, as he is trying to get a television show on the air, he's been trying to sell a book, and he's been selling t-shirts with pictures of Trump behind bars on them, he said.
Dershowitz also commented on news that the FBI had authorized deadly force in its search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, but called that "standard operating procedure" when a search warrant is being served.
"That's why we never use search warrants except as a last record," he said. "What would have happened with Trump if he failed to comply?"
Meanwhile, Dershowitz also detailed his experiences at the Trump trial in an interview with Newsmax's "The Record With Greta Van Susteren" Wednesday night.
"He threatened to strike the testimony of the main witness for the defense, the only substantive witness, and punish Donald Trump for something he had nothing to do with because he didn't like the way the witness was looking at him," Dershowitz said.
"It's just unthinkable that a judge could ever do that," he added. "It would be the most fundamental denial of a defendant's Sixth Amendment rights. He had already denied the defendant's Sixth Amendment rights over and over again by keeping evidence out that should have come in, although he let everything in in the prosecution's case."
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