Hush-Money Judge Unleashes on Trump Lawyer Over His Closing Arguments

Judge Juan Merchan ripped into Donald Trump attorney Todd Blanche over his closing arguments during the former president’s hush-money trial Tuesday.

Blanche told the jurors that Trump could be sent to prison if convicted, drawing the ire of the prosecution, as well as Merchan. Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass called Blanche’s comment a “blatant” and “inappropriate move” by the defense, and Merchan concurred.

“I think that comment was outrageous, Mr. Blanche. You know as someone who has been a prosecutor that it’s simply not allowed, period. It’s hard to see how that was an accident,” Merchan said, once the jurors had been dismissed for lunch. Upon Steinglass’s request, Merchan agreed to give a curative instruction to the jury when they returned.

Merchan told the jury that Blanche’s comment was “improper, and you must disregard it.”

“If there is a verdict of guilty, it will be up to me to impose a sentence,” Merchan said, adding that a “prison sentence is not required in the event of a guilty verdict.”

Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman said this was embarrassing for Blanche.

It’s no secret that Trump faces jail time in this trial, but mentioning a potential sentence to a jury is considered a bad idea in criminal law. It’s not the first misstep for Blanche in this case, though. He’s been admonished by Merchan before when trying to come up with excuses for Trump to evade his gag order. He also had to be corrected by witness Michael Cohen during a cross-examination, and embarrassed himself reading insults in court. These missteps, as Merchan noted, should not be coming from someone who is a former federal prosecutor.

Trump is on trial for trying to cover up an affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election by paying her off with Cohen’s help. The Republican presidential nominee faces 34 felony charges for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime, and has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Right-wing pundits and MAGA loyalists are losing their minds over something they made up, falsely claiming the Secret Service is knee-deep in preparations to ship their beloved Trump off to jail.

Reality is far less electrifying: CBS reported Tuesday that there’s little clarity on what would happen if Trump is found guilty in criminal court ahead of jury deliberations for his hush-money trial. Within that news item, CBS referred to an unnamed Department of Corrections source  who said that, as part of exploring the full scope of possibilities ahead of a verdict in Trump’s hush-money trial, Secret Service met with “local jail officials”—in this case, likely officials at New York City’s notorious Rikers Island.

It’s not even clear where Trump would be imprisoned, if he is at all. Trump’s 34 felony charges could entail sentences of up to four years in prison—per charge. In New York City, felony convictions with sentences over a year are typically sent to state prisons, not carried out at Rikers Island, which is technically only supposed to hold people whose sentences are around one year, as well as people held pretrial. A freshly convicted Trump could potentially be held temporarily at Rikers before being transferred to a state penitentiary, but this all rests on whether Judge Juan Merchan pursues hard time for Trump at all.

The process is unusual—most convicts don’t come with their own lifetime Secret Service detail—but is altogether routine for the matter at hand and by no means indicates Trump will be sent to the pokey: As CBS notes, Merchan may favor sentencing Trump to house arrest. Merchan previously described jailing Trump as “truly a last resort for me” when Trump repeatedly violated his gag order, taking into consideration the difficulties for Secret Service and jail staff to ensure Trump’s safety behind bars.

Jury deliberations in Trump’s hush-money trial are expected to begin Wednesday. Trump is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. He has pleaded not guilty.

Former Trump White House attorney Ty Cobb believes that Donald Trump can expect a guilty verdict in his New York hush money-trial.

“I expect a ‘GUILTY’ verdict, but only because the jury instructions as urged by the DA and adopted by the judge, over strenuous and well founded defense objections, virtually require conviction,” Cobb told Semafor Tuesday.

In order to find Trump guilty of felony-level falsification of business documents, the jurors must unanimously agree that he did so in order to further an underlying or separate crime. But last week, against the best efforts of Trump’s legal team, Judge Juan Merchan ruled that the jury will not necessarily need to agree on what those separate or underlying crimes are.

“I reach this legal conclusion because of my long experience as a federal prosecutor and white collar defense lawyer, my reverence for the rule of law, and despite my view that Trump remains the greatest threat to Democracy in our nation’s history,” Cobb said.

The former White House attorney also expects the jury to deliver its verdict by the end of the week—assuming the deliberations follow an old rule of thumb.

“Jury deliberations are always difficult to predict, of course, but one marginally useful rule of thumb is ‘assume one day for each week of trial,’” Cobb explained. “Here even though there were five weeks of evidence, they were short weeks due to the Court not sitting on Wednesdays and to other days or partial days off. So think of it as 4 weeks of evidence. If the jury begins deliberations Tuesday afternoon, expect a verdict no later than Friday afternoon.”

Trump is accused of using his former fixer Michael Cohen to sweep an affair with porn star Stormy Daniels under the rug ahead of the 2016 presidential election. The Republican presidential nominee faces 34 felony charges in this case for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime. Trump has pleaded not guilty on all counts.

Donald Trump lobbed a hefty snub to far-right lawmaker Bob Good on Tuesday morning, declaring he’s “BAD FOR VIRGINIA, AND BAD FOR THE USA.” Trump went on to endorse Good’s primary opponent, John McGuire, a former Navy SEAL turned Capitol insurrectionist.

Good has been down bad trying to curry favor with Trump, including traveling all the way to New York to kiss the ring outside Manhattan Criminal Court for Trump’s hush-money trial. During that visit, Good admitted that he and other Republican lawmakers were trying to help Trump evade his gag order.

“That’s why we went up there,” Good said on Fox Business during his visit. “So that we could say the things that this corrupt judge is not allowing him to say.”

Trump’s vengeful dismissal of Good—who chairs the far-right and disturbingly powerful House Freedom Caucus—appear to stem from Good’s early support of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s short-lived campaign for president. According to unnamed sources who spoke with CNN in December, Good’s endorsement of DeSantis came because he wanted a candidate who could be president for the next eight consecutive years—but Good still planned to support Trump if he became the nominee, calling him “the best president of my lifetime.”

Bob, the best president of your lifetime hates your guts.

Nikki Haley, former presidential candidate turned Trump endorser, spent Memorial Day not commemorating fallen American servicemembers but visiting Israel as it conducts a brutal massacre in Gaza.

On Monday, Haley posted pictures from a visit to southern Israel, where she met with survivors from Hamas’s attack on October 7. Haley told reporters that the United States “needs to do whatever Israel needs and stop telling them how to fight this war.”

She also traveled to Israel’s northern border with a member of the Israeli Knesset, Danny Dannon, who posted pictures to his own X account on Tuesday with the text “Finish them!” The post also included a picture of Haley signing Israeli artillery shells with the message: “Finish them! America loves Israel!”

Dannon’s post also included, in Hebrew, a message alluding to military strikes against southern Lebanon, referencing two Lebanese cities, according to Google Translate.

“This is what my friend, the former ambassador, Nikki Haley wrote today about a shell during a visit to an artillery post on the northern border,” Dannon wrote.

“The time has come to change the equation—the residents of Tyre and Sidon will evacuate, the residents of the north will return.

“The IDF can win!”

One post from an Israeli peace activist suggested that Haley visited West Bank settlements, which are considered illegal under international law.

Leaving aside the optics of signing bombs when Israel is facing judgment from the International Criminal Court for possible war crimes in Gaza, appearing to endorse military strikes against another country flies in the face of America’s efforts to avoid a wider war in the Middle East. On Monday, an Israeli strike targeting a motorcycle in southern Lebanon landed outside of a hospital, killing the motorcycle driver and a hospital security guard. But more explicitly, Haley is endorsing Israel’s war in Gaza, which has officially killed at least 36,096 people, including 15,000 children, figures that probably don’t include Israel’s latest assault on Rafah.

Renowned actor turned social justice activist Robert De Niro offered choice words outside Manhattan Criminal Court on Tuesday during closing remarks for Trump’s hush-money trial, cutting through the haze of the clown show of Trump supporters to remind everyone that New Yorkers have always hated Donald Trump—with new stakes making that stance a necessity nationwide.

“Donald Trump doesn’t belong in my city,” De Niro said to a gaggle of press cameras. “We New Yorkers used to tolerate him when he was just another grubby real estate hustler masquerading as a big shot. A two-bit playboy lying his way into the tabloids. He’s a clown.”

“We’ve forgotten the lessons of history that showed us other clowns who weren’t taken seriously until they became vicious dictators,” De Niro added. “With Trump we have a second chance, and no one is laughing now. This is the time to stop him by voting him out once and for all.”

The acting titan was tapped by the Biden-Harris campaign to deliver remarks outside the Trump trial, according to Rolling Stone, and was repeatedly interrupted and accosted by Capitol riot participants.

“It is a coward’s violence,” De Niro said of Trump’s incitement of the January 6 Capitol riot. “You think Trump ever threw a punch himself? Or took one? He hid in the White House bunker with protesters outside. He directs the mob to do his dirty work for him.”

De Niro praised Capitol Police officers Michael Fanone and Harry Dunn for their efforts to beat back the mob of rabid Trump supporters, but was interrupted by a far-right activist who participated in the January 6 Capitol riot falsely claiming Fanone and Dunn lied under oath.

“I don’t even know how to deal with you, my friend,” De Niro laughed. Following his remarks, Capitol riot attendees and far-right grifters accosted the legendary actor. “We are trying to be gentlemen in this world,” De Niro shot back. “The Democrats are trying to be gentlemen. You are gangsters. Fuck you.”

The courthouse has been a beacon for political stooges dressed like Trump, far-right fans, and counterprotesters showing up to spoil their P.R. stunts amid Trump’s hush-money trial, which entered into closing remarks on Tuesday with jury deliberations beginning as soon as Wednesday.

Donald Trump is still reminiscing about the greatest love of his presidency: Kim Jong Un, the supreme leader of North Korea.

In an interview with right-wing podcaster Tim Pool over the weekend, Trump spoke at length about how good his relationship was with the dictator, claiming that Hillary Clinton would have brought the country to the brink of war had she been president.

“It boiled down to something that was very beautiful, the way it happened, and I got along with him very well,” Trump said, saying that their relationship “morphed” from insults early on.

“He respected me, I respected him,” said Trump. He called Kim a “very smart guy, very strong guy” and the “absolute leader” of his country.

It’s not the first time Trump has spoken glowingly of Kim in recent days. At his rally in the Bronx last week, Trump praised Kim in addition to fellow authoritarians Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Viktor Orbán, saying they were “at the top of their game, whether you like it or not.”

Trump spent a lot of time during his presidency trying to woo Kim, exchanging letters and engaging in two summits, only for no peace deal or actual rapprochement to come of it. So why gush about Kim now? Perhaps he’s trying to invent some kind of accomplishment to tout on the campaign trial. Or perhaps he’s trying to paper over recent, more accurate news.

Just a week ago, Trump’s ambassador to the European Union from 2018 to 2020, Gordon Sondland, said in an interview with Foreign Policy that he once asked Trump privately about Kim.

“‘OK, Mr. President, cut the bullshit. What do you think of Kim?’” Sondland says he asked Trump. “And he goes, ‘That fucker would knife me in the stomach if he had the chance.’”

U.S. intelligence agencies worry that Kim and other dictators might take steps to tip the election in Trump’s favor, launching an “October surprise” event on his behalf. It’s no secret that such authoritarians prefer Trump in office to be able to carry out their schemes unbothered.

Judge Aileen Cannon rejected a gag order request in Donald Trump’s classified documents trial Tuesday on the basis that the filing wasn’t polite enough.

The gag order, filed by special counsel Jack Smith, was “wholly lacking in substance and professional courtesy,” according to the judge, who noted that the request did not allot enough follow-up time for Trump’s legal team to discuss the request.

“Because the filing of the Special Counsel’s Motion did not adhere to these basic requirements, it is due to be denied without prejudice. Any future, non-emergency motion brought in this case—whether on the topic of release conditions or anything else—shall not be filed absent meaningful, timely, and professional conferral,” Cannon wrote.

It’s just one of many subtle wins that Cannon has handed to the presumptive GOP presidential nominee in the trial. Earlier this month, she ordered a temporary stay on Trump’s legal requirement to give the government advance notice of which classified materials will be discussed—but never added an expiration date to it, effectively placing an indefinite hold on the proceedings.

Legal experts have warned that Cannon’s delayed actions and aversion to expedite the federal obstruction case could delay the trial until after November, and could also be the Trump-appointed judge’s way of surreptitiously dismissing the trial altogether.

On Thursday, former Trump White House attorney Ty Cobb accused Cannon of “incompetence,” insisting that there’s more than enough evidence—and time—to take the case to trial before Election Day.

“And frankly, this is a case that should’ve started trial yesterday or two days ago when the original trial date was set,” Cobb told CNN. “This case could have easily gotten to trial. Only her incompetence and perceived bias has prevented that.”

It’s amazing how much junior Senator Tim Scott can talk while licking Trump’s oxfords until they sparkle. The Trump toady and rumored veep contender spent the weekend spouting lie after lie on behalf of the incessantly indicted demagogue.

Speaking to CNN’s Dana Bash on State of the Union on Sunday, Scott derided a new campaign ad from the Biden administration targeting Black voters by reminding them of Trump’s fondness for racists. The ad says:

Donald Trump disrespecting Black folk is nothing new. He was sued for refusing to rent his apartments to black families and called for the execution of five innocent black and brown teenagers. It’s why Trump stood with violent white supremacists, warned of a blood bath if he loses the next election, and, if he’s president again, vowed to be a dictator who wants revenge on his enemies.

Scott called the ad “insulting,” then shifted to pitch his dear leader, saying, “There are two things that are driving Black votes back to Donald Trump: jobs and justice. Number one, under Donald Trump, our wages were going up. Right now, fairness is going down.”

Scott then pivoted to falsely claim Biden is resegregating schools, saying, “The elimination of charter schools under Joe Biden resegregates schools in America.” In reality, charter schools intensify school segregation and are a major cause of school segregation in the United States, according to multiple studies. Additionally, charter schools haven’t been eliminated under Biden whatsoever: The Charter Schools Program—the federal grant program that distributes public funds to privately managed schools—received $440 million last year, the same amount of funding  it has received since 2019 under the Trump administration.

In response to Trump getting aggressively booed at the Libertarian National Convention, Scott absurdly claimed to CNN, “I saw a wave of red hats at the Libertarian convention” and that “Donald Trump’s popularity continues to increase.” Alas, the red hats were for Argentina’s fascist populist president, Javier Milei, a Trump admirer and economy ruiner.

When Bash asked Scott about false statements Trump made that he “nearly escaped death” and that the FBI was “locked and loaded and ready to take me out” for a raid of his Mar-a-Lago home, Scott simply deflected. “Once again, we find ourselves reinforcing this two-tiered justice system—where we see a different standard for Republicans and specifically a different standard for Donald Trump,” Scott said.

Trump’s gripe about the Mar-a-Lago raid stems from language in a search warrant to retrieve classified documents he stashed. The warrants include a boilerplate note that deadly force is allowed “only when necessary” and described such a circumstance if someone “poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to the officer or to another person.” Trump referenced the boilerplate language in a fundraising email to falsely claim Biden was trying to assassinate him. In reality, the FBI made sure to conduct its raid of Mar-a-Lago on a day where Trump would not be present, in order to avoid confrontation. A similar warrant was also drafted to search Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home but was not necessary because Biden cooperated with the investigation.

New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez may be indicted for allegedly taking envelopes of cash and gold bars from local businessmen in exchange for favors with foreign officials, but that doesn’t mean he’s finished living the high life.

Instead, Menendez is reportedly spending thousands of dollars of campaign donations at Morton’s Steakhouse in Washington, D.C., “where the filet mignon starts at $56 and the tomahawks top out at $139,” according to The Daily Beast.

The campaign—which has only managed to raise a little more than $95,000 this year—has so far spent $7,012.51 at the steakhouse, paying the bill via Menendez’s New Millennium political action committee. Menendez’s committees also spent $1,489.22 at three New Jersey restaurants in January, $1,500 for catering from Italian standby Carmine’s, and $464.24 at an exclusive club near Capitol Hill, reported the Beast.

And Menendez can continue to have his donors foot the bill for as long as he wants. The disgraced Garden State politician can keep spending so long as he can claim that the meals were meetings, even if he ends up blowing every penny and then some, according to a campaign finance lawyer who spoke with the publication. Brett Kappel of the firm Harmon Curran noted that the “candidate is not personally liable for the debts of the campaign.”

And there’s even precedent for Menendez to do the same with his attorneys: The embattled politico could effectively rinse his hands of his legal bills by reporting the fees as outstanding campaign debt, since the criminal charges are “arising out of his status as a federal officeholder.”

“He could theoretically list them as campaign debts and never pay them, just file FEC reports every four months,” Kappel told the Beast. “The actual deadline is when the lawyers refuse to do any more work, because they need to get paid.”

Still, the campaign has quite a bit more cash to chew through—roughly $3.5 million—before it’s in jeopardy.

The New Jersey Democrat and his wife stand accused of acting as foreign agents for Egypt, taking hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of flashy gifts in exchange for Menendez’s “power and influence to protect and enrich” the businessmen and government of Egypt. In a superseding indictment filed in January, Menendez was also accused of other corruption-related charges, including allegedly taking bribes from Qatar in an attempt to help a New Jersey real estate developer secure a multimillion-dollar investment from a company tied to the Middle Eastern country and collecting lavish gifts in exchange for his handiwork. Menendez and his wife have pleaded not guilty to all charges.