Two CNN legal analysts informed a network correspondent that Judge Juan Merchan’s mistrial denial ruling was not fair to former President Donald Trump’s defense.
Merchan denied Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche’s motion for a mistrial Tuesday after porn star Stormy Daniels’ testimony, which he claimed was “unduly prejudicial,” with the judge questioning why the defense did not raise more objections.
CNN anchor Audie Cornish echoed Merchan’s sentiment of saying it was the defense’s fault that Daniels’ testimony was excessively detailed, but network legal analysts Elie Honig and Elliot Williams told her the judge could have stepped in at any time.
“That‘s actually one of the things I found most striking were these repeated attempts to call for a mistrial, but with one of them ending with the judge basically telling them that they were bad at their jobs, saying to Trump‘s attorneys, ‘look, I don‘t know why you let that go.’ That is your job to stop that moment and that I feel like is one of those moments that people can look back on and see in the record as being kind of a turning point, if anything,” Cornish said.
“Something we haven‘t talked a lot about this week is that prosecutors and the judge can also step in at a certain point,” Williams said. “And the judge, and Elie and I talked about this one day earlier in the week where you‘re asking questions and the judge just says, ‘objection sustained.’ Where the other side didn’t object to it, but they should have and he’s sort of slapping them on the wrist for not having done so. And if the judge truly felt that evidence should not have been getting into court, he had every right and ability to cut it off.”
Merchan suggested he will tell the jury only to take into account a limited portion of Daniels’ testimony in the trial about an alleged $130,000 payment from Trump to the porn star for her to keep quiet about an alleged affair.
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“But is there a world where he wouldn’t want to be jumping in. Right? In a case so high-profile?” Cornish asked.
“This is where I think the judge was actually quite unfair to Trump‘s team when it came to ruling because he said, ‘well, it‘s your fault. You should have been objecting.’ First of all, Trump‘s team raised it before the day started, and the judge said, ‘I’m with you, we’re not going to get out of control with the details.’ And second of all, Trump‘s team did object three, four times and the judge said, I agree,” Honig said. “Objection sustained. So what are they supposed to do? Pop up every question? You look horrible in front of the jury.”
First published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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