As the first day of former President Donald Trump’s hush money case drew to an end, many legal experts shared their thoughts and opinions on the case.
One such expert is Fox News legal analyst Jonathan Turley, who described the case as absurd and added that the law was not supposed to work that way.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted the former president for allegedly falsifying business records related to payments to adult movie star Stormy Daniel.
Turley, while speaking on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom,” told host Dana Perino that Trump’s opponent would have been better off just trying the former president over the Mar-a-Lago case.
“The more cases against Trump, the less justice we receive as a people,” Turley said. “You know, the opponents of Trump would have been far better off with just one case, the Mar-a-Lago case. That’s based on real law, real precedent, and one can disagree with the interpretations. But it’s not a reach in the sense of this case.”
Cicero once said, “The more laws, the less justice.”
NY judges and lawyers appear eager to prove that the same is true for cases. Today Donald Trump's criminal trial begins and it may prove a greater indictment for the NY court system than the defendant. https://t.co/09Puuat0cz— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) April 15, 2024
Turley added that Bragg’s case against the former president is so absurd that it creates a “criminal code just for Trump.”
“This case is creating something, it’s creating a criminal code just for Trump. You know, you have a misdemeanor whose time has expired, the statute limitations ran out, and it was revived in this rather curious way,” Turley added. “He’s effectively arguing that Trump was filing false business records through his counsel to hide a federal crime. But it isn’t a federal crime, this wasn’t a campaign contribution. None of that appears to matter, and that’s why a lot of us are looking at this and recoiling. This is not how the law is supposed to be.”
Jonathan Turley: "Everything about this case is, in my view, legally absurd… So you have this crazy case that’s going to go forward, and it’s going to turn on the testimony of people like Michael Cohen. And Michael Cohen just recently had a judge call him a serial perjurer." pic.twitter.com/GglsYDHyOv
— MAGA War Room (@MAGAIncWarRoom) April 14, 2024
Turley, a constitutional law professor, suggested that Bragg is bending the law because that is what New Yorkers want.
“New Yorkers appear to like it this way. They elected James, who ran on bagging Trump for anything, didn’t even mention what. And they now are lionizing this district attorney who’s putting together what many of us consider to be an absurd indictment.”
Jonathan Turley on Alvin Bragg's "Frankenstein case":
"They took a dead misdemeanor, they attached it to a dead alleged federal felony and zapped it back into life. Many of us are just amazed to watch this actually walk into court because it's not a recognizable crime." pic.twitter.com/G4ltw2E5W6
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) April 15, 2024
The first day of the trial witnessed several dramatic moments, including one where the judge threatened to arrest Trump if he skipped any day of the trial.
The judge also declined Trump’s request to miss a court date on May 17 so he could attend his son Baron’s graduation.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: "That I can't go to my son's graduation, or that I can't go to the United States Supreme Court. That I'm not in Georgia or Florida or North Carolina campaigning like I should be… This is about election interference." pic.twitter.com/SSfWxMUu7d
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) April 15, 2024