Legal scholar Jonathan Turley blasted the judge in former President Donald Trump's hush money trial for using former porn star Stormy Daniels' testimony for "punitive" and "political purposes," Breitbart reported. Turley made these remarks on Fox News Channel’s America Reports on Tuesday.
Turley, who is a legal analyst for the network, said Judge Juan Merchan "lost control of his courtroom" during proceedings involving Daniels. She was called as a witness for the prosecution ostensibly to give her side of the story about the money.
Unfortunately, she gave much more, including some sordid details of her alleged tryst with Trump, ABC News reported. After Trump's attorneys raised objections, Merchan admitted that Daniels was "a little difficult to control."
Because so much was said in front of the jury, Trump's team asked for a mistrial. Merchan denied their request but said that he "was surprised that there were not more objections" from them.
In his analysis, Turley was harsh on Merchan's remark about the defense's supposed lack of objections. "You know, the statement of the judge, that he’s surprised there isn’t a higher number of objections from the defense is baffling," Turley told host John Roberts.
"The defense objected to putting her on the stand. They then objected to the scope of the questioning, and now the judge sounds like Claude Rains saying, I’m shocked, shocked there’s a porn star in my courtroom," Turley said.
"Well, you know, if you give a lot of scope to testimony, what did you expect? And the problem with what the judge has done here is that this is an entirely unnecessary witness," Turley continued.
"It is uncontested that there’s an NDA, whether what happened in their relationship, if there was one, is immaterial to how those payments were denoted by the Trump campaign," he charged.
"So the court had the opportunity repeatedly to say we are not going to take this courtroom through details of this relationship. If you want to establish a relationship occurred, do so. Establish the dates, it’s likely those facts could’ve been been stipulated to," Turley explained.
It seems Turley believes calling Daniels to the witness stand to spill her guts was done intentionally. "So the prosecutors wanted to get salacious details out. This is a form of punishment," Turley charged.
"They are trying to use a witness for punitive purposes and, in my view, political purposes, and this is what happens. It happened because the judge lost control of his courtroom," Turley added.
The host agreed with Turley's assessment. "There seems to be no argument, Jonathan, that this was only to make Trump look like a bad guy," Roberts said.
"You know, you really can’t have this cat walk backward. The judge knows that, the prosecutors know that, but what the prosecutors are arguing here is completely ridiculous," Turley concluded.
This whole trial is an obvious sham, and Merchan's decision to allow the latest stunt all but proves it. The left wants to get Trump any way they can, even if it is underhanded, improper, and just plain wrong.
