Former President Donald Trump's attorney Jesse Binnall believes the judge in his hush-money case is intentionally keeping him from campaigning, Breitbart reported. Judge Juan Merchan has forced Trump to remain in the courtroom as the jury deliberates on the charges.
Both sides rested in the trial on Wednesday, and the jury began deliberations. However, as of Thursday afternoon, they still had not returned a verdict.
Binnall believes that keeping Trump in the courtroom on tenterhooks is part of a larger strategy to sideline his 2024 presidential campaign. Trump is the presumed GOP nominee who will face off against President Joe Biden in November.
"I think we all know that the entire reason that Judge Merchan had scheduled this case for when he scheduled it for, and why he has been very, very deliberate in keeping Donald Trump in the courtroom," Binnall said. He added that Trump "can’t even leave the courthouse area because he wants to keep Donald Trump off the campaign trail."
Binnall went on to explain that Merchan wins either way. "He knows that the process is the punishment, that even if a jury comes back with a not guilty verdict, or the jury comes back hung, he’s still got his pound of flesh..." he said.
The attorney added that Merchan has "been able to keep Donald Trump from going out and campaigning, while his chosen candidate Joe Biden has been not only free to go around the country campaigning but using this case in order to attack Donald Trump" without impediment. "It’s just one of the biggest travesties of justice I think we’ve ever seen in our criminal justice system," Binnall added.
Merchan not only hamstrung Trump physically by keeping him in court, but also through a gag order imposed in the trial. Trump was barred from mentioning the judge and other court workers and received a $10,000 fine for violating the order earlier this month, the Associated Press reported.
The judge threatened to jail the former president if he kept violating the order. "The threat to throw the 45th President of the United States and the leading candidate in the 2024 presidential election in jail for exercising his First Amendment rights is a Third World authoritarian tactic typical of Crooked Joe Biden and his comrades," campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said.
It's unfair to keep the GOP candidate in court and tell him to shut up about it while his opponent has the bully pulpit. This fact makes it difficult to construe Merchan's motives as anything but a scheme to help the Democrats.
All of the judicial maneuvering in the world might not be enough to save Biden's candidacy after all. In fact, a new poll demonstrates that the trial doesn't move the needle either way for either candidate, Fox News reported.
According to an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist National Poll published Thursday, two-thirds of registered voters report that a guilty verdict for Trump would not make a difference. Even for those who believe it would change their view, it's a statistical wash, with 17% reporting they would be less likely to vote for Trump after a conviction compared to 15% who said they'd be motivated to vote for him.
An acquittal seems to be even less persuasive, with three-quarters of respondents reporting that it wouldn't impact their vote at all. Of those who reported it would make a difference, 14% said a not-guilty verdict for Trump would make them more likely to vote for him, while 9% said they would be less likely.
Trump may have the last laugh after all, as these hardly seem like monumental numbers for those who hoped to smite him with this case. This also comes as Trump is polling slightly ahead of Biden in recent surveys, suggesting it will take much more to stop him.
It's unclear how the jury will decide the case as deliberations continued well into Thursday afternoon. What's clear is that it doesn't seem to matter much to voters either way.
