Dershowitz: Trump Could Fast-Track His Appeal To Supreme Court

Retired Harvard Law Professor and Jeffrey Epstein’s former attorney Alan Dershowitz thinks that former President Trump has a path to expedite his conviction to the US Supreme Court before the November presidential election.

Trump was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in order to conceal ‘hush money’ payments to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election.

In a Friday interview with Megyn Kelly, Dershowitz suggested that Trump’s legal team should immediately push to get their appeal heard before the New York Court of Appeals, asking them to bypass the Appellate Division – which, Dershowitz suggested, are elected and more likely to work against Trump.

“The Appellate Division or Manhattan judges that are elected and they don’t want to have to face their families and say you were the judge who allowed Trump to become the next President of the United States. They don’t want to be Dershowitz’ed,” he said, referring to the fact that he defended Trump during his first impeachment trial in the Senate.

“They don’t want to be treated in New York, the way I have been treated in Martha’s Vineyard and Harvard and New York because I defended Donald Trump, so they should skip the Appellate Division.”

And so, to avoid the politicized Appellate Division, Trump’s attorneys should ask the Court of Appeals for an expedited appeal while preparing to argue in front of the US Supreme Court that the Manhattan case was rushed to try and get a verdict before the election. 

Dershowitz further suggested that the Supreme Court has an obligation to review the case before the election so that the American public has resolution.

As Tom Ozimek of the Epoch Times notes further, Dershowitz has in the past accused Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg of unfairly building the case against the former president by using a novel legal theory to elevate misdemeanor business falsification charges into a felony by alleging that the records fraud was carried out to conceal an underlying crime. In the Trump case, the underlying crime that was alleged was seeking to interfere in the 2016 election by using non-disclosure agreements to prevent unfavorable media coverage about an alleged affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniels that the former president has denied.

The retired law professor alleged that Judge Juan Merchan “improperly” allowed irrelevant salacious details of President Trump’s alleged tryst with Ms. Daniels to be admitted into the record, while also raising the so-called “missing witness” issue.

The second point that Mr. Dershowitz said would bolster a petition for an expedited review to the New York Court of Appeals is that the judge allegedly didn’t instruct the jury properly on why prosecutors didn’t call former Trump Organization CFO Alan Weisselberg to testify in the case. The judge was open to having Mr. Weisselberg testify but the prosecution didn’t call him, framing him as an unreliable witness due to earlier perjury charges in an unrelated case, while the defense also didn’t call him, citing the fact that prosecutors had undermined his credibility.

Mr. Dershowitz argued that failure to call Mr. Weisselberg left a hole in proving the case because it was expected that his testimony would have undermined some of the claims from another witness, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, who testified against the former president.

“Number two, I think would be the failure to give an instruction on the missing witness,” Mr. Dershowitz said. “The way the judge and the prosecution handled Allen Weisselberg really denied the defendant the right to a presumption that the only reason he wasn’t called was because he would not have corroborated the very important testimony, lying testimony of Michael Cohen.”

Mr. Dershowitz said those two issues are what Trump attorneys should highlight in their request for an expedited appeal.

“This is a winnable appeal,” he insisted.

The Epoch Times was unable to reach Trump counsel for comment on Mr. Dershowitz’s remarks.

Mr. von Spakovsky said that the prospect of the Supreme Court getting before the appeals process plays out in New York state courts is not realistic.

“There are certainly issues that give the Supreme Court jurisdiction over the state court conviction, given the fundamental violation of Donald Trump’s substantive due process rights under the U.S. Constitution in the way the trial judge and prosecution mishandled the case,” he said. “But I don’t believe the Supreme Court will take the case until the state appeals process is exhausted.”

Jonathan Emord, a constitutional law and litigation expert, told The Epoch Times that he believes that the trial violated President Trump’s due process rights and was “riddled with bias” but that he, too, sees little hope for Supreme Court intervention until the New York Court of Appeals has weighed in.

“The fact of the matter is that a trial violated President Trump’s due process rights and was riddled with bias, evidentiary rulings that deprive him of a full and fair opportunity to present his case,” he said.

“On the merits, there really is no foundation for a legal basis for decision because it’s a novel theory of law that’s been applied,” Mr. Emord said of the way the case was brought by Mr. Bragg.

Asked why Mr. Johnson suggested that the Supreme Court should step in at an earlier-than-normal stage of the appeals process, Mr. Emord suggested it’s because of “exceptional circumstances.”

“He’s arguing that there are exceptional circumstances that would warrant the Supreme Court to intervene and while there certainly are exceptional circumstances, I suspect that the Supreme Court would not intervene in the first instance, but would allow an appellate court in New York to issue a determination,” he said.

Short of a successful appeal, President Trump could now be facing such penalties as jail time, probation, or fines.

Sentencing in the case has been set for July 11, just four days before the Republican National Convention where President Trump will be formally designated as the Republican presidential nominee.

While there are no laws barring President Trump from running for the White House as a convicted felon, an overturned verdict before Election Day would likely boost his chances of victory.