Judge Denies Trump's Motion Alleging Prosecutorial Misconduct

[GMDino]

https://www.meidastouch.com/news/judge-denies-trumps-motion-alleging-prosecutorial-misconduct

Quote:Judge Merchan addressed Trump's motion today to find that the Manhattan District Attorney's Office committed "prosecutorial misconduct" by providing documents late in discovery. These were documents requested by their office from the US Attorney many months ago by the DA, but only received by their office recently. These documents were apparently in possession of the FBI who took some time turning them over. The DA argued that only a handful of documents were relevant to the case, and none of them helped Trump in any way.


Nevertheless, Trump's lawyers filed their motion based on a "discovery violation" - that the documents were provided late after deadlines imposed by the court. The DA responded that they did nothing wrong since the federal government was in possession of the documents, not their office. At one point, they even argued that they only way they could've possibly gotten the documents sooner was to sue DOJ.

Trump's lawyer Chris Kise disagreed with the DA's position that the documents only hurt Trump, therefore they weren't useful in any way to his defense. He argued that some of the documents turned over contain exculpatory information related to the Mueller investigation. Much to the consternation of Kise, the Judge then interrupted to rule that he would not consider those relevant since none of the evidence pertaining to the Mueller investigation would be allowed at this trial.


At one point, Judge Merchan asked Kise if he could cite a single appellate court case that held a state DA's office could be found guilty of prosecutorial misconduct for a discovery violation where the documents at issue were in the hands of a federal agency. Kise said he could not. Merchan then said the fact that they were making such serious allegations against the DA's office with no legal authority to back it up was "disconcerting."

Right before taking a recess, Merchan summed up his frustration with the argument from Trump's lawyers:

Trump then walked outside during the break to complain that the whole case was a "witch hunt" and a "hoax."

When he returned from the break, Merchan said he did not need additional time to consider his decision and ruled against Trump, stating that the DA was not at fault. He then set the case for trial on April 15.