The New York City Hush Trump trial resumes on Tuesday. In testimony so far, things have taken a decidedly nasty turn for former President Trump. One ruling by Judge Juan Merchan that happened in testimony last week is particularly surreal and petty.
This trial is already bizarre, what with this zombie case being reanimated just in time to "Get Trump" before the November election. And Trump is under orders to stop talking about players in the trial or the judge's daughter, a Democrat political operative, who is alleged to have made millions on her dad's trial for her firm — a firm where Joe Biden is a client.
Indeed, the only thing missing in this trial is a laugh track.
A gag order on a defendant is practically unheard of in the interest of preserving a fair trial for the person who could lose his liberty over these charges. A hearing on the prosecutors' claims that Trump broke the gag order will be held on Thursday of this week, and the former president is ordered to be there or else:
"WARNING: YOUR FAILURE TO APPEAR IN COURT MAY RESULT IN YOUR IMMEDIATE ARREST AND IMPRISONMENT FOR CONTEMPT OF COURT."
So the former President of the United States of America could be thrown in Rikers if he doesn't show up or if he's found to have broken what most legal scholars, though probably not Laurence Tribe, consider an unconstitutional gag order.
Going to Riker's Island prison may be unlikely, but this is also an unlikely trial without foundation, so anything can happen.
Most everyone knows that Donald Trump was President of the United States of America. Addressing him as "President" Trump is a title accorded to all former presidents though they're not in the White House anymore and is a term of respect accorded to even Jimmy Carter, and we all know how that turned out.
So it was bizarre when I saw this Fox 59 news story about prosecutors not wanting defense attorneys referring to their client as "President" Trump.
Related: Media Reports Shocking Trump NYC Witness Intimidation—And Then We Busted Them.
"The insistence of Donald Trump’s defense in his hush money trial to refer to him as 'President Trump,'” even when describing events that took place before his election, is rankling prosecutors," the news outlet reported. You read that right.
The news outlet reported that in court, "Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass suggested Friday that using the title is anachronistic and confusing," he said with a straight face, "when tacked onto questions and testimony that involve things that happened while he was campaigning in 2015 and 2016."
It might be helpful to note here that all of the charges of bookkeeping errors by former President Trump involve payments by his attorney in 2017.
'"Objection. He wasn’t President Trump in June of 2016,'" Steinglass noted after one such mention. The judge sustained the objection." Of course, he did.
As happens in trials every day, defense attorneys told the judge what they would call their client at the outset of the trial. There were no objections at that point noted by the Fox account.
But let's be honest, what animates this case is that Democrat prosecutors are upset that President Clinton doesn't refer to Hillary. Her loss is the basis of this trial.
Happy birthday to this future president. pic.twitter.com/JT3HiBjYdj
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 26, 2016
"When she was born, President Clinton was named after Sir Edmund Hillary," you can hear them say, the first to scale Mt. Everest, though he accomplished this feat after she was already named. He scaled the mountain with his sherpa Tenzing Norgay. Note that Hillary never says anything about her parents wanting to name her Tenzing, but no matter. The point is, that this is a gelatinous glop of a story, but they'd still refer to her as "President" Clinton.
If her Russian collusion scam would have worked, you can bet they'd be calling Hillary President Clinton in reference to all aspects of her life — even Benghazi.
Related: This New York City Prosecution of Trump Is a Dangerous Legal Jenga Game for Democrats
I know what you're thinking: Hillary would never confront this issue because she'd never be in court. That is absolutely, 100% correct. But if there was equal justice and she did find herself answering the judge's bell, prosecutors would call her President or maybe even Madam President.
“Two words give us hope: Madam President." —@VogueMagazine https://t.co/RCACiLsFVc pic.twitter.com/aaYwwVFasi
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 23, 2016
Remember now that the nut of the prosecution's case is that Donald Trump stole the 2016 election and in the planning of his campaign broke federal and (lately) state criminal law. Most egregiously, prosecutors allege, he paid out a non-disclosure agreement with Stormy Daniels, who made porn films and probably won many Golden Penis Awards for her acting. I have no idea if there is such an award, but it seemed appropriate to set the tone of who we're talking about here. Trump says there was no tryst with Stormy in the early 2000s.
The National Enquirer paid a former doorman $30,000 when he came forward to sell a tale about a love child between a woman who worked at Trump Tower. The false story was squelched.
Another woman, Karen McDougal — no, not Bill and Hillary's Whitewater scam McDougal family — came to the National Enquirer to spill her tale of a Trump tryst in the "mid-2000s" after her days as a Playboy model. The outlet paid her $150,000.
Reminder: none of this is illegal. Unseemly, perhaps. Illegal, no. Pecker was doing it for all kinds of Hollywood and political glitterati. Looking at you, Rahm Emanuel. One wonders if the real President Clinton in his bimbo eruption days did the same.
One last note. Thank you for being a VIP Member. You're making a difference.
