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If you’ve been following former President Donald Trump’s hush-money trial in New York, you might have seen the shocking news that the judge in that trial, Juan Merchan, issued bizarre and plainly unconstitutional jury instructions on Wednesday, telling jurors they need not agree on what crime Trump allegedly committed to reach a unanimous guilty verdict.

You read that right. According to Judge Merchan, the jury could come back with a guilty verdict without agreeing on whether Trump committed election fraud, tax fraud, or falsification of business records. He essentially divided the jury into three groups of four, saying that if they’re split 4-4-4 on what crime Trump committed, he’d treat that as unanimous. To say this is unusual is of course a gross understatement.

President Trump got a chance to speak at his sentencing hearing, and as you can easily imagine, he took it. Here’s the audio (6:17). President Trump was not remorseful. He was unbroken, unrepentant, unapologetic, and whatever is the exact opposite of remorseful. He told the court he was “totally innocent” and repeatedly insisted “I did nothing wrong.” The President denied the charges, called the whole thing an injustice, a political witch hunt, a disgrace to the system, an embarrassment to New York, and to make sure it was perfectly clear, said the case should never have been brought.

https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/1877755140549095812

Trump told Judge Merchan, “it was done to damage my reputation so that I’d lose the election, and that obviously didn’t work. The people voted in a massive landslide and I got the largest number of votes by far of any Republican candidate in history, all seven swing states, and the popular vote.” The President flatly told the judge, “the people watched your trial and they voted.”

After all that, Merchan still gave him the unconditional discharge. Unsurprisingly, the useless New York Times reported none of Trump’s comments. ...

Trump has promised to appeal. Given how far the State of New York stretched the business records law used to convict the President, not to mention all Merchan’s bizarre trial rulings, there is a solid chance for reversal so long as the appellate court is even a little bit fair.

Liberals will simply be inconsolable if the conviction is reversed and they lose their “felon” label, which is all they have to show for all that effort.