by Larry Thornberry
Like many Americans, I spend more time than I should listening to the news from Manhattan, where a local prosecutor has charged a leading Republican presidential candidate with 34 crimes related to being Donald Trump. I challenge everyone to find more in the fees and specifications. I really should ration my news about the trial. I could even take a day off. I’m starting to understand what Bill Murray’s character is like groundhog day he must have had the impression that the news from the trial was practically the same from day to day.
As I listen to educated lawyers, including defense attorneys, on television analyzing Fat Alvin’s legal circus, I can’t facilitate but wonder if the bar exam is too effortless. Or maybe it just doesn’t include questions about jurors, their idiosyncrasies, vulnerabilities, and biases. These “experts” go on and on, rightly so, about what an empty political farce these allegations are, to the point where anyone can understand that the allegations are more than just that Donald Trump has had his soiled moments from time to time in the company of women, he had to hide his indiscretions and did not want his wife or the public to know about them. Things American voters knew before electing him president in 2016. They didn’t choose him for that reason, but still, given the alternative, which, if you recall, was a major enabler and protector after her presidential husband’s numerous “bimbo” eruptions and his sleazy May-December peccadilloes in the Oval Office.
Experts, including defense attorneys who should know better, also repeat “what the prosecution must prove” or “what the prosecution must establish,” as if the evidence, or even the legal validity of the allegations themselves, were false. what’s the meaning here? They seem to forget that the trial is taking place in Manhattan, where, I’m afraid, all the prosecutors need to establish in order to obtain a conviction is that the defendant’s name is Donald Trump. In Manhattan, Old Scratch himself would likely have a better chance of a fair trial than Donald Trump. In the OJ trial, we experienced what we call a jury nullification, where no amount of evidence was sufficient for the jury to convict. In this case, it may be the other way around, where no evidence, even a probable crime, is needed to convict. I hope I’m wrong. But if the worst happens, I’m sure two things will happen: there will be dancing in the streets of Manhattan, and Donald’s poll numbers will rise. Make no mistake – for anyone who hasn’t gotten far into the Trump Disorder Syndrome, Manhattan is more on trial here than Donald Trump.
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Larry Thornberry is a writer in Tampa.
PHOTO “Donald Trump” by Trump White House Archive. Cover photo “New York Supreme Courthouse” by wallig. CC BY 2.0.
