Judge Juan Merchan, overseeing the New York criminal trial of former President Donald Trump, erred by not sequestering the jury for the holiday weekend, Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova told Newsmax on Monday.
Closing arguments in the case involving allegations that Trump falsified business documents to cover a $130,000 payment by his former attorney Michael Cohen to adult film actor Stormy Daniels are expected to begin Tuesday. Trump has pled not guilty and has vehemently denied any wrongdoing.
"Of course, they should have been sequestered," Toensing, a former deputy assistant attorney general and diGenova's wife, told "American Agenda." "This is a monumental trial, the most significant in our legal history, as I look at it.
"A former president has been indicted, and you've got the jurors being able to just talk to anybody about it [over the holiday weekend]. They're not going to obey the [rule about] don't talk to your neighbors. You know that. There's another cause for reversible error."
DiGenova, a former U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., said this is just one of several errors Merchan has made in the case of which he said from the start has been rigged to gain a conviction against Trump.
"This judge has made so many errors because let's remember, this is not a real criminal trial," diGenova said. "The judge was selected in this case purposely to handle this case because they wanted to get a guilty verdict. Make no mistake about it: When you see how he conducted the trial, his animosity toward the defense, his love affair with the prosecution, the way he dealt with various defense witnesses, especially Bob Costello, the way he lost his temper with Costello.
"Some of the lawyers who have appeared in front of him said he has two traits: He's a bully, and he's dumb. Now, that's one of the worst combinations you can have in a judge. But in this case, there's no doubt after watching what happened with the jury instructions where the defense lost almost every request, this judge is going to direct a verdict of guilty. He's going to basically tell the jury to convict and that's where we end up with when you have a corrupt judicial process like you have in the state of New York."
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