Not 'a winning argument': Ex-federal prosecutor explains why jury instructions will sway Trump trial

28 May 2024

Before the Manhattan jurors begin their deliberations in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr.'s hush money/falsified business records case against former President Donald Trump, they will be given instructions by Justice Juan Merchan.

Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner, during a late May appearance on MSNBC, laid out some reasons why those instructions are so important as the trial winds down.

Kirschner told a panel that included MSNBC host José Díaz-Balart, Politico's Sam Stein and NBC News' Dasha Burns, "The jury instructions are designed to sort of channel the jurors' deliberations. The jurors get to decide what the facts are. They get to decide the credibility of the witnesses. But once they decide those facts, it is the judge's instructions of law that they have to apply those facts to see if Donald Trump is guilty or if they believe perhaps (that) the prosecutors failed to prove Donald Trump's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt."

The former federal prosecutor added, "So, I tell you, lawyers will pour over and obsess over the instructions of law. Because both parties will propose often competing instructions. And Judge Merchan had to decide which ones to give, and he has done that."

Kirschner predicted that Trump's defense team, during closing arguments, will present "a reasonable doubt argument where they haven't presented a unified alternate theory to the prosecution's theory of the case."

"They're probably going to argue that you should disbelieve everybody — you should disbelieve every piece of physical evidence," Kirschner told Díaz-Balart, Stein and Burns. "And they'll argue that the government has failed to prove Donald Trump's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. That is an appropriate argument, but it is not necessarily a winning argument when you can't provide the jury an alternate theory of the case."

Díaz-Balart asked Stein to weigh in on the trial's political implications of the jury deliberations.

The Politico journalist responded, "Well, very different messages for different verdicts, right? If he is found guilty, the message would be: This is a corruption of the system of justice, this is a case brought by my general election opponent deliberately to upend my presidential campaign…. If there is a hung jury or an acquittal, you can expect Trump to say, 'Complete exoneration.' He'll say the system of justice works — suddenly, it's totally in reverse — and that despite the best efforts of his opponent, in this case Joe Biden, he has emerged victorious."

Stein added, "So, those are the two expectations for how he plays it."

Watch the full video below or at this link.

'Would you vote for me if I'm arrested?': Trump campaign preparing for hush money verdictwww.youtube.com

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