Dershowitz: Biased New York Times/TikTok Jury Bad for Trump, 'Best He's Likely to Do Is a Hung Jury'

Harvard University Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz appeared on Newsmax Friday and said the composition of the jury seated in Donald Trump’s “hush money” trial did not bode well for the former president as he fights Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

Bragg is infamously trying to bring down the presumptive GOP nominee for the presidency with ludicrous charges concerning a 2016 payment Trump made to porn performer Stormy Daniels.

Many legal critics have been heaping scorn on the case, which reeks of political motivations and novel (garbage) legal theories, but Dershowitz pointed out that even though the proceedings might appear blatantly unfair and biased to an intelligent person, the 12 jurors and 6 alternates empaneled may be so hopelessly brainwashed that the facts won’t matter.

You can blame the left-wing New York Times and the Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok for that:

I think this is a bad jury for Donald Trump. I think it's too much of a New York Times, TikTok jury. [A] guy says he has strong views about Trump, but he can put them aside—NONSENSE.

People can't put aside (inaudible) that Trump, so I think: This is maybe the best you can do with the New York jury pool, but it's not a good jury for Donald Trump.

Dershowitz thinks there’s little chance the New York Times crowd will simply acquit the former president—a split jury is probably the best he can hope for:

I think the best he's likely to do is a hung jury. I can't imagine, although it's always possible, that twelve of these jurors will vote to acquit him if they have feelings about Donald Trump.
Again, it may be the best you can get because the jury pool is so skewed.

The Newsmax host asked if Judge Juan Merchan, who has shown a strikingly anti-Trump tone so far, could be trusted to ensure an impartial trial. Dershowitz said no:

HOST: You know, so the jury may be the best you can do. And also, we're stuck, apparently with Judge Juan Merchan. Another interesting development today was that the prosecution is refusing to tell Trump's team the names of the first witnesses and Merchan is not going to make them. Is that legal? Is that fair?
DERSHOWITZ: No—it's not fair. You have a right to prepare, and if I were Trump's lawyers, as soon as the name of the first witness [is put] forward, I would call for a recess. I need two or three days to prepare my examination...
You can't just call witnesses out of the blue and expect… to be ready for cross-examination or objections.

But the Harvard lawyer didn’t just focus on the minutiae of the trial as it gets set to hear its first testimony Monday—he pointed out that the entire affair is a political clown show:

Look, this trial from beginning to end is unfair.

The gag order is outrageously unfair. The Constitution permits a defendant to be critical of witnesses who are testifying against him, to be critical of the daughter of the judge who is making money every day that her father sits in judgment on Donald Trump. You can't just engage in prior restraint willy-nilly against the man running for president of the United States and tell him what he can say and what he can't say.

Obviously, you can prevent him from intimidating witnesses or threatening witnesses or threatening family members, or even threatening the judge. But criticizing is part of the essence of our First Amendment...

Dershowitz can be confounding, and I wholeheartedly disagree with him on his O.J. Simpson stance—but on this one, he’s right on target. This show trial is an abomination of justice and an outright farce.

The Media Diet of Trump 'Hush Money' Jurors Shows the Defense Is Already at a Major Disadvantage