Jonathan Turley: Trump Hush Money Trial Has Left Many Legal Experts Shocked

MCENANY: “You know, Professor Turley, we went through some of the substantive issues that Trump addressed, but he also spent a lot of time on the case. He gave what I would call his own version of his closing argument today in those hour-long remarks. What did you make of it?”

TURLEY: “Well, it wasn’t a bad closing argument. The fact is that much of what happened in that courtroom became superfluous because of those instructions. Some of us were hoping for a hung jury because we hoped that the jury might redeem the New York legal system, which is one of the greatest legal systems in the world. And these last, these last few weeks have left many of us shocked as to what we saw in that courtroom. But that was not going to happen after the instructions were finalized. And I wrote a column after I saw the instructions, saying it had the feel of a canned hunt. You know, where you can shoot game in a small space. The space was very small for the defense to maneuver and even smaller, it seemed, for the jury to acquit. So I don’t blame the jury at all. I think that what they heard in that room probably made it seem to many of them that this was a lead pipe cinch of a conviction. You know, they heard over and over again the prosecutors say that there were election violations committed by Donald Trump, that he ordered Cohen to commit the violations he pled guilty to. That totally smashed the instruction that Merchan had given. And Merchan just sat there. There was no response. So, what do you think the jury is going to rule? And then when you tell them, just pick a crime among the three, you know, just — you know, you don’t have to agree. Just pick one of these crimes. If you think that secondary crime was behind all of this, you’re good to go. But to this day, most of us don’t know what the jury decided because we know that they unanimously voted to convict. We don’t know what they convicted him of. They could have disagreed 4-4-4 on what occurred in this case. That’s one of the first things that I think a court will look at for reversal.”

MCENANY: “Yeah, without a doubt, a huge constitutional issue. I would argue a Sixth Amendment one.”