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When Brad Smith was presented as a witness, Judge Merchan just about had a fit.
Smith is a former FEC official who was going to be called to give a detailed explanation of election laws.
Merchan dropped the hammer and severely limited the scope of questioning that would be permitted with Smith, so Trump’s defense team decided to pull the plug and not put him on the stand.
That, however, did not stop Smith from going right to the media to explain what he would have told the jury.
Let Me Speak!
My guess is that Merchan did not want Smith to turn this into a debate about the 2020 election, so he blocked any avenue that Smith would have had to discuss this.
So, Smith went the route of talking to the media, basically giving his testimony to the press since the jury would not be able to hear it.
He stated, “You read the law and it says that anything intended for the purpose of influencing an election is a contribution or an expenditure.
“But that’s not in fact the entirety of the law.
“There is the obscure, and separate from the definitional part, idea of personal use, which is a separate part of the law that says you can’t divert campaign funds to personal use.
“That has a number of specific prohibitions, like you can’t buy a country club membership, you can’t normally pay yourself a salary or living expenses, you can’t go on vacation — all these kinds of things.
“And then it includes a broader, general prohibition that says you can’t divert [campaign funds] to any obligation that would exist even if you were not running for office.
“We would have liked to flag that exception for the jury and talk a little bit about what it means.
“And also, we would have talked about ‘for the purpose of influencing an election’ is not a subjective test, like ‘What was my intention?’ — it’s an objective test.
“So hiring campaign staff is for the purpose of influencing an election.
“Renting space for your campaign office, buying ads, maybe doing polling, printing up bumper stickers, travel to campaign rallies, renting venues for campaign rallies — all of those things exist only because you are running for office.
“But under the personal use rules, a lot of things candidates do running for office are not considered campaign expenditures, things like paying for a weight loss program or a gym membership, nicer clothes, teeth whitening, or all that sort of thing.
“It may be true that you do those things in part to help yourself get elected — you might not do them otherwise — but they are not obligations that exist simply because you are running for office. Lots of people do those things.”
Merchan stated that he did not want Smith confusing the jury, which translates to him not wanting Smith to convince the jury that Trump did not break the law, instead relying on a very limited explanation of the law that was given by prosecutors.
Even with Smith out of the picture, it is still hard to imagine the jury coming back with a guilty verdict after the way this trial went, especially after the disastrous testimony of Michael Cohen.
