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May 30, 2024 - Sean Hannity Show
32:34
Unprecedented Jury Instructions - May 29th, Hour 2
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If you want to be a part of the program, we've been telling you the jury has made four requests, jury instructions given this morning, and they have been deliberating for a little over four hours and 38 minutes, and they have requested four things.
Now the judge is suggesting that they work on the Cohn and Pecker testimony tomorrow, which, to be honest, makes a lot of sense considering they were there late yesterday.
And if the judge wants to stick to the 4.30 timetable that he himself set up, it would probably be better for them to hear the instructions and the transcripts before they restart their deliberations.
So it looks like my guess, if the judge is suggesting that they, they were now learning that they're suggesting they work on this tomorrow, that the judge will probably dismiss the jury for the day.
The four questions that are in testimony, David Pecker's testimony about the phone conversation with Donald Trump, Pecker's testimony about the decision regarding the assignment of Playboy model Karen McDougall's life rights, Pecker's testimony about the 2016 Trump Tower meeting, Michael Cohn's testimony about the 2016 Trump Tower meeting.
What can you glean from this?
What does this mean?
I guess it's anybody's guess.
But anyway, the jury has requested to hear these instructions after the judge denied them a copy of the instructions.
They've now been deliberating over four hours.
Now, Trump's attorney, Todd Blanche, looked at Trump, gave him a smile as the second note was handing to the judge from the jurors.
Not sure.
Trump's team believes the longer it takes, the better it is for them because it means people are disagreeing with each other.
Probably a good analysis, but you've got to really listen to everybody that we have ever interviewed regarding these cases.
You can't read into a lot of it.
Anyway, here to help us read into it anyway, even though it goes against what I just said.
Greg Jarrett, Fox News legal analyst, best-selling author, David Schoen, civil rights attorney who previously represented President Trump as well.
Gentlemen, welcome back to the program.
Greg, I start with you.
What do you make, if anything, of the request from the jury?
And the judge now has officially dismissed the jury.
Court resumes at 9.30 tomorrow morning.
Your analysis, I think, is a good one.
I mean, you could have been called.
Wait, wait, hang on.
Can you repeat that?
I didn't quite hear you.
My friend, but you chose the wicked path of journalism.
Look, there is a temptation to read a lot into this, but I think you're right.
You know, these jurors seem confused.
I mean, they're asking to see just about everything, including the jury instructions, which the judge wouldn't allow them to take in the courtroom or in the deliberation room.
Well, I thought there were two jurors that were going to have it on a computer.
Am I wrong on that?
Not that I'm aware of.
Matt.
Let me pull up my notes as you're talking here.
I thought juror number four and juror number six were, oh, hang on a second.
I got it right here.
All the evidence from the trial has been uploaded onto the laptop evidence.
Okay, so I stand corrected to myself.
Juror four and juror six volunteered to operate it for the group.
All the evidence from the trial.
In other words, evidence, things that have been presented in as evidence, but not instructions.
You're correct.
So, you know, it looks like they want to see everything from Michael Cohen to David Pecker, even a part of the case that really is utterly irrelevant to the charges, and that's Karen McDougal.
And so one is tempted to draw the conclusion you did, and that is that, you know, as I predicted, this is a jumbled mess that was presented by Alvin Bragg and his team of partisan prosecutors.
It was like, let's throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks.
And, you know, I think they have created an enormous amount of confusion.
It's up to the jurors to try to wade through the lunacy in search of the truth.
Let me go to something.
You were the first person to point this out to me a long time ago, once this bizarre theory came out that the judge telling the jurors that there is no need to agree on what has occurred, and they can disagree on what the crime was among the three choices.
In other words, they can think Donald Trump's guilty for separate reasons, reason A, reason B, reason C. Four of them can support reason A, but he's guilty.
Four could support reason B, he's guilty, but for a different reason, and option number C, an entirely different reason.
Now, you pointed out and were the first to point out to me that the Supreme Court has been very, very clear in this, that they have held that unanimity in jury verdicts is required under the Sixth and Seventh Amendments.
Do you want to expand on that?
Well, the latest case was 2020 Ramos versus Louisiana.
And it's a case that every lawyer who tries cases knows.
And basically what Mershon has done here is he has ripped up Trump's due process rights.
He instructed the jury they need not agree unanimously on which of the three mysterious secondary crimes that the defendant supposedly committed.
So in other words, they're free to pick and choose whatever they like without consensus.
How in the world can that be?
Because unanimous jury decisions are a bedrock constitutional principle derived from the Sixth and Seventh Amendment.
And that requirement extends not just to the verdict itself, but to all issues, including every necessary element of an alleged crime.
It's an indispensable feature of jury trials.
It's what makes America's system of justice the envy of the world.
But in the case against Donald Trump, jurors can agree to disagree while still reaching the ultimate verdict.
You know, this is an Alice in Wonderland case with a madhatter judge in which the principles of fairness he has turned upside down.
Well, I keep saying that he basically drops cinder blocks on the scales of justice to save the prosecution from a case that was going down the toilet, especially after the cross-examination of Michael Cohn.
David Shoan, great to have you back.
Let me get your take on the jury requests here.
And what do you read into it, if anything?
Yeah, again, I mean, your first comment was right that we can't read too much into it.
We don't have crystal balls.
But part of it, which Greg alluded to, is it really shows you why we have a rule, a prophylactic rule against introducing irrelevant evidence.
The fact that they're interested in the Karen McDougall story tells you that they're considering things that really should never have been a part of this trial.
The risk of it is they consider it to determine whether President Trump is guilty or not guilty, and that's specifically prohibited.
With respect to the finding of different alleged crimes, look, the most fundamental problem that we've discussed on here is the indictment is fatally defective as a constitutional matter for not alleging what the target crime is.
It's a matter of due process and a bunch of other fair trial rights under the New York and the federal Constitution.
You can't put a defendant to trial without knowing what it is the target crime was supposed to have been.
If it were a tax crime, that's one defense.
Campaign finance, another defense.
And I'll give you an illustration.
I mean, the elements of these alleged crimes, the government came up with a variety of three, originally four.
The elements are all technical.
What intent was required for each crime?
When you defended the case all along, did you put in evidence about where the contribution came from?
In case we're really talking about a campaign contribution crime, I'll tell you why.
That's irrelevant.
I was looking at a part of the jury instruction that instructed the jury that at the time of these acts, the campaign contribution limit was $2,700.
Well, the theory of the prosecution in this case is that Trump made a campaign contribution through by paying this money to his own contribution.
The FEC rules are clear.
That $2,700 limit doesn't apply to a candidate's own contribution to his own campaign from his personal funds.
So what was that jury instruction doing in there?
It's very well, but I think it even goes deeper than that.
He has a lawyer who he pays on a personal level.
It was not part of his administration.
This is post-the campaign.
Everybody had known about the Stormy Daniels issue.
It was not new news.
I have the letter from 2018 that Stormy said.
I read it earlier than the last hour.
You know, I became aware news outlets are alleging I had a sexual and or romantic affair with Donald Trump many, many years ago.
And I am stating with complete clarity that this is absolutely false.
This is January 2018.
My involvement with Donald Trump was limited to a few public appearances and nothing more.
And when I met Donald Trump, he was very gracious, professional, a complete gentleman to me and everyone in my presence.
And then she also talked about this allegation.
I denied it in 2006, 2011, 2015, 2016.
I mean, and now denied it in 2018 for crying out loud.
So I'm trying to understand, and she never received, she actually says, rumors I've received hush money from Donald Trump are completely false.
So, I mean, to me, it's pretty damning in and of itself.
So what are we talking about here?
Donald Trump paying his lawyer to go into a legal NDA?
Or, you know, where is catch and kill illegal when Hillary Clinton, I would argue, was involved in many leaking of many stories all throughout this.
Well, the lawyer himself said that the money was not hush money.
It was a settlement and all of that.
No, that's why, you know, as you said all along, and Greg has said there was no crime here.
The problem here is, you know, the judges weighted these jury instructions.
Are they going to have special verdict sheets so we know what crime it is the jurors agreed on was committed here?
It's a farce.
It's an absolutely moronic farce.
What are we to read into the length of time that the jury deliberates before they come back with either a note to the judge saying that they just hit a point where they are hung, that they can't find agreement?
Or is there a point?
You know, Greg, you know, the judge at that point, I assume, will instruct them to probably try and go back and solve their differences.
But if they can't come to an agreement in that jury room, this case is over.
Yeah, I think that's true.
The judge will normally introduce an Allen charge, otherwise known as the dynamite charge, go back in there and try harder.
But, you know, I've seen deliberations stretch on for a couple of weeks.
If the judge believes that they are progressing in earnest, that it's constructive, that they might actually reach a unanimous decision, then he continues to encourage them to keep at it.
But, you know, I've also seen shorter deliberations in which the jurors have made it abundantly clear we're deadlocked, we ain't changing, and it doesn't matter how much time we spend in the deliberation room.
So, you know, every case is different.
It tends to be a bit subjective on the part of the judge.
So, you know, we'll see how this unfolds.
But I never thought this would be a quick decision for the reason I stated initially.
This is a massive, mess of confusion, jumbled stories, jumbled law, none of it well organized, and it's, you know, spaghetti against the wall.
Let me ask about how the judges handled this case in this sense.
The idea that the prosecution in closing arguments was able to over and over and over and over again claim that the payments were campaign violations and the judge allowing that claim to stand uncontradicted.
Now, the defense tried to object, and every objection was overruled by the judge.
And so the judge allowed that.
Now, that's the example that I'm referring to when I talk about cinder blocks on the scales of justice.
I think we saw that when the judge, for example, would not allow even the testimony of Bradley Smith, who is an expert on FEC law, who I interviewed, who would have said that there's no crime here.
Greg?
Yeah, I mean, look, there are so many reversible errors committed by this judge.
You'd need a calculator to keep track.
I think that was a mistake by the judge.
Equally was a mistake when the judge said, I'm not going to allow you to discuss the law in closing arguments.
I mean, that ranks high on the list of the most outrageous rulings ever rendered.
It's beyond incompetence.
It's venal.
Because obviously, what lawyers do is they talk about the law and the evidence and for the defense, how the evidence doesn't meet the law.
Prosecutors argue the exact opposite.
And they know in advance the jury instructions and they weave it together with the evidence and the facts in the case.
Judge Murshong would have none of that.
And it's just evidence of his, you know, I think it's incompetence.
Unbelievable times we're living in.
Anyway, David Schoen, Greg Jarrett, thank you both.
Appreciate you both being with us.
800-941-Sean is on number if you want to be a part of the program.
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Hey there, I'm Mary Catherine Hamm.
And I'm Carol Markowitz.
We've been in political media for a long time.
Long enough to know that it's gotten, well, a little insane.
That's why we started Normally, a podcast for people who are over the hysteria and just want clarity.
We talk about the issues that actually matter to the country without panic, without yelling, and with a healthy dose of humor.
We don't take ourselves too seriously, but we do take the truth seriously.
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If you're just joining us, the jury has been dismissed for the day.
We are on verdict watch.
Day one is in the books.
But the jury has made now four requests for testimony.
Former National Inquirer publisher David Pecker's testimony about the phone conversation with Donald Trump.
Pecker's testimony about the decision regarding the assignment of Playboy model Karen McDougal's life rights.
Pecker's testimony about the 2016 Trump Tower meeting and Michael Cohn's testimony about the 2016 Trump Tower meeting.
Why they would want anything from Michael Cohn, I don't know.
But if you remember, Pecker, publisher of the National Enquirer at the time, and he did get a deal with the prosecution that they wouldn't prosecute him if he testified.
But anyway, he got a phone call from Trump.
They were at an investor meeting.
An attorney for Karen McDougall was shopping a story of having had sex with Trump years earlier.
Trump denied it.
And this was all part of catch and kill, which is not illegal.
And then Pecker saying, what should I do?
I said, I think you should buy the story and take it off the market.
Anyway, Pecker said, and they had a friendship going back many years prior.
But anyway, Pecker said Trump described McDougal as a nice person and said Cohn would soon call him, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Months later, Pecker reached an agreement to transfer McDougal's life rights to Cohn, but the deal fell through after their general counsel advised against going forward with the transfer.
And anyway, Pecker said to Cohn, the assignment deal is off.
I'm not going to forward it.
It's a bad idea.
I want you to rip up the agreement.
And Cohn apparently had a meltdown.
Pecker and Cohn both testified about a meeting at Trump Tower in 2015.
Pecker said he was meeting where he agreed to be the eyes and ears, you know, looking out for any negative stories about Trump.
By the way, not illegal.
Anyway, let's bring in former Attorney General, the great state of Arizona, Mark Bernovich, is with us.
Sir, how are you?
I'm very good, Sean.
Thanks for having me on.
What do you make of the jury's questions and what I just read back to you about what took place in that testimony?
Well, I, first and foremost, what you said, assuming that all of that is true, it is not a crime.
And literally, there was not one single piece of direct evidence saying that somehow the former president wanted to falsify business records, which technically, even though the statute of limitations has expired on that, that's supposedly the crime we're looking at.
Second thing is I learned a long time ago not to read too much into jury questions.
I mean, there was a lot of stuff the prosecutors threw against the wall.
And frankly, Sean, I look, I prosecuted gang cases.
I was a federal prosecutor.
And great prosecutors, even good prosecutors, recognize that you want to save and preserve your case on appeal.
But there has been so many errors in this case from the very beginning with not only the judge and what the prosecutors themselves argued and even some of the testimony they allowed in from Stormy Daniels that really there is no way, no way, even with an entirely democratic appellate court that this case will withstand any sort of scrutiny.
And to me, as I was listening today, even these questions, I kept thinking to myself, this case really is more ridiculous every day.
It is the theater of the absurd.
Think about it.
As you just said, by the way, there's no charge on the McDougal side of this.
None.
It was fake news before we even knew what that meant.
And then you had an adult film star who literally has dedicated her adult life to doing anything for money, you know, testify.
And her testimony may have been the worst performance of her entire career.
And then you had Robert De Niro get up and do a rant outside of the courtroom.
I literally was expecting today when those jury questions came in for the judge to bang the gavel and say, live from New York, it's Saturday night.
Because, I mean, this is really like it's so ridiculous objectively.
It frankly is unconscionable, unprecedented, and unconstitutional.
And that's what people need to take away from even those questions today.
Am I wrong in believing that the judge realized that the prosecution didn't make their case, that Michael Cohn was so gutted on cross that he went in for the save and sent lifeline after lifeline?
And we saw that when he severely limited any testimony as it relates to the law in this case, Bradley Smith, the former FEC chair who I've interviewed, said there was no crime committed.
The whole meltdown with Bob Costello, who would have, if it was allowed, would have impeached all of Donald Trump's testimony.
I'm sorry, Michael Cohn's testimony.
And he would have added that he spent an hour and a half on the phone with Alvin Bragg and his team discussing all the evidence that existed that was exculpatory that they would then have an obligation to bring before the grand jury and they did not bring before the grand jury indicting in this case.
That is certainly going to be an avenue of appeal, I think, that they will win.
That's my personal point of view.
And then, of course, leading into jury instructions today, which I found absurd, which is that the jury don't need to agree on what has occurred.
They can disagree.
They can think a crime committed, and four people can think it's A, four can think it's B, and four can think it's C, and the judge would still treat it as a unanimous guilty verdict, which I think is outrageous.
Now, we just had Greg Jarrett on, and he pointed out to the 2020 Ramos versus Louisiana case and the Supreme Court case that, you know, has held unanimity in jury verdicts as required under the Sixth and Seventh Amendments.
The requirement extends to all issues.
And to find someone guilty, jurors must always agree without dissent on every necessary element of a purported crime.
That is not the instructions this judge, who I believe, again, is putting cinderblocks on the scales of justice, and you can correct me if you disagree with me, has done in this case, I think sending a lifeline and a possible, you know, if there's a guilty verdict, I would put the burden on him.
Well, look, even on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, you only get three lifelines, right?
But I agree with your analysis, Sean, that time after time, the judge kept throwing the prosecutors' lifelines.
And to me, as I said, good prosecutors recognize and realize that you don't want to get a conviction at any cost.
Your job is to do justice.
You want to make sure the conviction's upheld on appeal.
But what has happened systematically, even from the very beginning of this, some of the testimony, like the testimony from Stormy Daniels, completely irrelevant.
Some of the information that Michael Cohen or the prosecutor is using closing argument about his conviction, completely irrelevant, highly prejudicial, shouldn't have been allowed in.
You can go through the litany.
Almost every single witness that either testified or wasn't allowed to testify, as you noted, the former president's expert, really was putting, yeah, the cinder blocks, the finger, the fist, whatever you want to call it, on the scale of justice.
And to me, it's just really sad as someone that's, I mean, I've handled thousands, probably thousands, personally, criminal cases during the course of my career.
And I couldn't help but think of the old Stalin line about, you find me a man and I will find you to crime.
And in the Soviet Union, what that meant was that the political establishment, the intelligentsia, the deep state, whatever you want to call it, that if you did not agree with them or kowtow to what they wanted, they literally would end your career and you'd find yourself in prison.
And to me, I just keep saying to all my friends that are left of center or the people that don't like Trump that this isn't about Donald Trump.
I mean, even at the end, when the prosecutors made their closing argument yesterday, they started talking about if you find that he made this payment to try to influence the election, he is guilty.
That's not true.
That's not the legal standard.
But putting that aside, by their own theory, and I've heard people talk about this, like, well, then Hillary Clinton was guilty for the steel dossier, which he paid out of legal fees.
Clearly, that's true.
But do people in the media realize under that very theory, by them suppressing stories, by them, you know, whether it's the mainstream media or whether it's social media, by suppressing the Hunter Biden story, they literally could be charged by a prosecutor out there somewhere because by doing that, if they had more sales or somehow they profited from it and they were doing it to influence the election, they're guilty of a crime, according to Alvin Bragg's theory.
So that has a chilling effect.
And where are all the folks in the ACLU or the liberal media saying, wait a minute, this theory one day could come back to bite us?
As Ronald Reagan used to say.
They're too short-sighted to say.
What did Reagan say?
What did he say?
It's like feeding an alligator and hope he eats you last.
Well, that's a great way to put it.
What did you make of the fact, and again, I believe the judges put cinder blocks on the scales of justice in favor of the prosecution.
And, you know, all throughout closing arguments, the jurors had been told dozens of times that, you know, any of these payments were campaign violations, and the judge allowed all of it to stand uncontradicted.
And as much, the defense gave up even objecting because they were overruled almost every time.
And yeah, and that obviously creates issues for the defense because you want to save issues, preserve them on appeal.
But at the same time, if you keep objecting and you know the judge is going to favor the prosecution, you know, it makes no sense to you because it makes it look like you're trying to hide something or conceal something or, you know, you're wasting the juror's time.
I honestly kept thinking when I kept hearing about these rulings, it's like, my goodness, where were these judges when I was prosecuting gangbangers and tough cases?
I mean, I've had judges restrict how much I could say in a closing argument versus they got all carte blanche.
Even going back to the very beginning of this, I think you and I have talked about, spoken about this, is that I've never in my life heard of a judge requiring a criminal defendant or someone accused of a crime to sit in the courtroom every single day for emotions, for juries, for everything.
Because remember, it's the right of the accused.
It's the person on trial's rights that we're trying to preserve.
We're not trying to get a conviction at any cost.
And frankly, I think the defense should have kept this argument simple.
And you just basically ask, was there any direct evidence that it was done to influence the election?
Well, no.
Was there any possible explanation for why he made these payments?
Well, yes, maybe to preserve embarrassment.
He's made payments in the past.
That in and of itself shows the prosecution's theory is blown out of the water.
And then, maybe more importantly, remember that there was no evidence that he ever intended to conceal these payments.
In fact, the prosecutors themselves said, oh, he signed him in Sharpie and look at his signature.
So if someone's trying to conceal or hide payments, why would they be so bold about it?
And ultimately, the prosecution has to prove to all the jurors beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump, or the former president, intended to do this to conceal an illegal campaign contribution.
So it's just absolutely asinine.
And frankly, Sean, what I'm worried about, what I'd worry about if I'm the president's team, is a hung jury.
Because I actually think based on the rulings, what Bragg has said, the prosecutor, what the judge has done, that I think they're going to be like, all right, let's retry this thing in a month.
And we could be going through this again in September and October.
So I actually think in a weird way, so hang on a second.
So they're going to retry this in the middle of an election campaign as if this hasn't been bad enough keeping him off the campaign trail.
You think they'd do it again?
I think they would based on everything that's happened.
I mean, look.
But I'm going to be honest, I don't see an acquittal option here.
I don't think a New York jury, I've said from day one, I don't think he can get a fair trial.
I think I've been proven right.
He did not get a fair trial.
Regardless of what the outcome is, I'll stand by that.
And just like Mar-a-Lago is not worth $18 million.
It's just he can't get a fair trial in New York, D.C., or Fulton County, Georgia.
Yeah, and I think based on the questions, there are clearly, and you don't know who's steering this in a jury room.
It always takes on a dynamic, but it could be, you know, someone saying, hey, wait a minute, all we need to show is this.
And maybe they're trying to convince somebody else on the jury that's a Pecker testimony.
But I agree with you, it is unlikely that there will be an acquittal.
So the next best option, theoretically, for the president is a hung jury.
But I actually think if there's a hung jury based on what Bragg has said and done, based on how this judge has conducted this trial, that you will see them say, all right, let's reload it and let's do it in September.
And as a prosecutor, I've had to retry a case a couple times.
What about long-standing Justice Department policy?
And you know what works or doesn't work after.
So it'll actually be more disadvantaged, disadvantageous to the president from a trial perspective.
But more importantly, as you just alluded to, we could be in September and October retrying this literally in the middle of a campaign season.
And once again, it just breaks my heart because America, historically, we have resolved our political differences by exercising our First Amendment speech rights and the right to vote, the ballot box, so to speak.
But unfortunately, you have liberal prosecutors who want to settle political differences in the jury box.
And that is they have weaponized the criminal justice.
And that should concern everyone, whether you're an independent, liberal, conservative, libertarian, whether you're a Green Party, wherever you fall in the political spectrum, this is a dangerous precedent.
And just because you may not like the president, ends cannot justify the means.
Well, you're echoing the comments that I read earlier from Alan Dershowitz.
We appreciate you being with us.
Mark Bernovich, former AG of Arizona.
Great to have you, my friend.
Thank you.
All right, as we roll along, all right, the jury has, well, they're done for the day, and they are, you know, they have these four requests in, so we're going to wait, watch, and see what that ultimately means.
But they want the readback on these specific questions that they're asking for.
And, you know, we're going to wait and see.
They're going to do that tomorrow.
I think it's going to get pretty interesting.
And I think that, you know, asking for Pecker's testimony, asking for his testimony regarding phone conversations with Trump, his meeting at Trump Tower, his decision not to finalize and fund the assignment of McDougal's life rights and Cohn's testimony regarding the Trump Tower meeting.
More details, Bill O'Reilly next.
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