Legal scholar Jonathan Turley has blasted the Democrat judge in President Donald Trump’s “hush money” trial for allowing Stormy Daniels to take the witness stand and provide an unrelated and salacious testimony.
Turley, a professor at George Washington University Law School, accused Judge Juan Merchan of using Daniels’ testimony for “punitive” and “political purposes.”
Prof. Turley blasted Merchan, a President Biden donor, on Fox News’s “America Reports.”
He said Judge Merchan “lost control of his courtroom” during the proceedings involving Daniels.
As Slay News reported earlier, Daniels, an adult star, was called as a witness for the prosecution ostensibly to give her side of the story about the alleged “hush money” payments.
Unfortunately, she gave much more, including some sordid details of her alleged tryst with Trump, ABC News reported.
Daniels repeatedly blurted out inflammatory statements during her testimony that were not relevant to the case.
The defense argues that Daniels sought to make additional salacious allegations to paint Trump in a negative light before the jury.
She also made other unfounded claims that sought to frame herself as a “victim” of Trump.
The statements from Daniels during her testimony have led to widespread calls for a mistrial.
After Trump’s attorneys raised objections, Merchan admitted that Daniels was “a little difficult to control.”
Amazingly, she even admitted during testimony that she “hates” Trump.
Because so many damaging and unrelated comments were made before the jury, Trump’s team pushed for a mistrial.
Merchan denied their request.
However, the judge said that he “was surprised that there were not more objections” from them.
In his analysis, Turley was harsh on Merchan’s remark about the defense’s supposed lack of objections.
“You know, the statement of the judge, that he’s surprised there isn’t a higher number of objections from the defense is baffling,” Turley told host John Roberts.
“The defense objected to putting her on the stand.
“They then objected to the scope of the questioning, and now the judge sounds like Claude Rains saying, I’m shocked, shocked there’s a porn star in my courtroom,” Turley said.
“Well, you know, if you give a lot of scope to testimony, what did you expect?
“And the problem with what the judge has done here is that this is an entirely unnecessary witness,” Turley continued.
“It is uncontested that there’s an NDA, whether what happened in their relationship, if there was one, is immaterial to how those payments were denoted by the Trump campaign,” he charged.
“So the court had the opportunity repeatedly to say we are not going to take this courtroom through details of this relationship.
“If you want to establish a relationship occurred, do so.
“Establish the dates, it’s likely those facts could’ve been stipulated to,” Turley explained.
It seems Turley believes calling Daniels to the witness stand to spill her guts was done intentionally.
“So the prosecutors wanted to get salacious details out,” Turley charged.
“This is a form of punishment.
“They are trying to use a witness for punitive purposes and, in my view, political purposes, and this is what happens,” Turley added.
“It happened because the judge lost control of his courtroom.”
The host agreed with Turley’s assessment.
“There seems to be no argument, Jonathan, that this was only to make Trump look like a bad guy,” Roberts said.
“You know, you really can’t have this cat walk backward.
“The judge knows that, the prosecutors know that, but what the prosecutors are arguing here is completely ridiculous,” Turley concluded.
This whole trial is an obvious sham, and Merchan’s decision to allow the latest stunt all but proves it.
The Left wants to get Trump any way they can, even if it is underhanded, improper, and just plain wrong.
READ MORE – Joy Behar Responds to Stormy Daniels’ Wild Testimony: Trump Is a ‘Despicable Person’
