i m paul gigot. a manhattan jury found donald trump guilty this week on all 34 counts of false iffying business records, the first time in history that a former u.s. president has been convicted of a felony. thursday afternoon s verdict marked a dramatic end to the almost 6-week trial, but trump vowed that the legal fight is not over. this was a rigged decision right from day one. with a conflicted judge who should have never been allowed to try this case, never. and we will fight for our constitution. this is far from over. paul: let s bring in jim trusty, a former federal prosecutor and former donald trump attorney. welcome, jim. good to see you again. so what do you make of this verdict? well, it s not a shock, unfortunately. i mean, this is the lawfare. it s really at a its worst with. you had a politicized prosecutor who had a picked through the trash of a case that the southern district of new york specifically rejected doing that his predecessor rejected doing, but
asked to particularize their indictment. there s 34 charges in the indictment that are template, they re bare bones charges. they list element and they say to wit a check or a rebellinger. they do not give ledger. the only time we had felony theories coming out was really kind of, i think, an unethical press conference by alvin bragg where he held up a statement of facts which was not anything the grand jury decided, but something alvin bragg decided. so he skirted the ethical prohibitions about talking about the facts of the case by kind of creating this impersonation document in lieu of an indictment. so you had a very vague indictment, a judge that did not make them particularize, and literally all the way to the closing arguments or at least to the charging conference there was not clear how he was going to instruct the jury on that critical issue of how these misdemeanors became felonies. so that s going to be a big one for appeal. i would also just mention real quick, paul, tha
do we have to say in this case they were wrong or what? no. i think juries are only good as what they hear, or you know? they can t be blamed for what they don t hear. and the instructions to the jury and the denial of certain witnesses trump wanted to bring, i think that reflected in their vote. so i don t blame the jury. i think two points about it. one, i think it s going to be reversed on appeal. remember, new york courts, whatever you think of to them, they ve reversed harvey weinstein [laughter] paul: right. appeal. they said he didn t they brought witnesses that shouldn t have been heard paul: present additional testimony. yes. so if they could do that, probably the most unsympathetic defendant after trump in the country, i think there s hope for trump. so i do think there s so much grounds for reversal. but the second point is it doesn t matter, because it will have served it purpose. its
you had a trial that the southern district, a case they failed to bring. alvin bragg pushed this case, got a manhattan jury, a judge who, by and large, sided with the prosecution on balance throughout the case and somehow brought a conviction from a manhattan jury. and i think, certainly, new york s legal system is going to be under a cloud after this, and i think given what has been going on with lawfare generally out there that the american people are really becoming upset about an institution that they bought thought was an arbiter for these kinds of disputes and instead has become a political player. paul: bill, we ve always thought that you have to put your trust in juries. right. paul: the jury system is what we have, and they are the closest to the case based on the facts that they heard in that six weeks. what do you make of this then?
the nine justices to withdraw from a case. it almost never happens. that is the only a way the court can function. that is the obligation to sit. paul: because you can t pull some lower court bench guy to replace now. no. right. [laughter] and we have been through this before where justice ginsburg was making clear her opposition to donald trump. there was another case in the ninth district, a judge named reinhart whose wife was involved with the american civil liberties union in a case that was being brought before the court. he did not feel he had to recuse himself. so, again, the standard to bar, to force a judge or a justice to recuse in these cases is extraordinarily high and with good reason. paul: bill, justice alito says that the flag flying were his wife s choice. he disagreed, but she has the right to free speech. i suppose anyone in a marriage