Alan Dershowitz, a well-known attorney, stated on Monday that former President Donald Trump’s lawyers should make a motion to force Judge Juan Merchan to enable Trump to be present, but not constantly, during his criminal trial.
Merchan threatened Trump with arrest if he did not attend the trial regarding a $130,000 payout to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016 as part of a confidentiality agreement during Trump’s successful run for the White House, after Trump asked to attend the Supreme Court’s oral arguments on presidential immunity set for April 25 (Monday was the first day of jury selection). Dershowitz suggested Trump’s attorneys act immediately to address Merchan’s threat, which he viewed as a form of “election interference.”
“I would hope Trump’s lawyers bring a mandamus right now, at the very least, let Trump out of the courtroom, let him campaign,” Dershowitz told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow. “If he makes a decision that he would like to waive the right to be there, there is nothing in the Constitution which gives the prosecution the right to keep him there. It is only a defendant’s right.”
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“If the defendant chooses to leave the court, whether to go to son’s graduation from school which apparently the judge didn’t grant or campaign in Pennsylvania, he has the right to do that,” Dershowitz continued. “That is a constitutional case that should be brought immediately.”
Dershowitz earlier tore into the trial, labeling it “direct election interference” on the part of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
“The only reason they’re bringing it is to keep Donald Trump out of Pennsylvania… out of Wisconsin, keep him out of Arizona, keep him out of other states,” Dershowitz said. “This is direct election interference. The purpose of this trial is to keep him from campaigning, to give the advantage to Joe Biden and his campaign.”
Trump currently leads President Joe Biden by 0.2% in the RealClearPolitics average of general election polls for a head-to-head matchup, a lead that grows to 1.8% when Green Party candidate Jill Stein and independent candidates Cornel West and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are included.
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“I’m not a Trump supporter politically but I know unfairness when I see it,” Dershowitz said. “I would like to see Trump defeated on the merits without election interference, fairly and squarely in a way that he can’t complain, that Republicans who voted for him can’t complain and the New York district attorney is denying the people of America the right to a fair election.”
First published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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