FOX: VERDICT REACHED -- "GUILTY" ON ALL 34 MADE-UP "CRIMES"

Oof.

We never had much of chance, just a fool's chance.

@CollinRugg

BREAKING: Donald Trump found GUILTY on 34 of 34 felony counts in the NYC hush money case.

The jury deliberated for a total of 9.5 hours over two days before reaching a verdict.

Sentencing is expected in the coming weeks but could be delayed.

Each felony count Trump was facing carries the possibility of up to four years in prison but experts say that Merchan may choose house arrest and/or probation for Trump.

Trump is expected to appeal the conviction which will likely take months. According to the New York Times, it's unlikely the appeal process will be resolved before Election Day.

Victoria Taft: The judge's instructions were basically a 55-page directive to the jury to find Trump guilty no matter what.

If the five-woman, seven-man jury doesn't find Donald Trump guilty of the alleged bookkeeping mistakes, it will be a miracle. This is because the 55-page final jury instructions that attorneys saw only moments before the judge read them in court on Wednesday is a "directed verdict" to Trump's guilt. That's it. That's why an uncharacteristically somber Trump announced that even "Mother Teresa couldn't beat these charges." See his comments below.

The "fix is in," as one notable former U.S. attorney decreed. "This is most corrupt judicial proceeding in the history of the United States," former District of Columbia U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova told WMAL.

Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz agrees that the fix is in. "The judge essentially instructed the jury to convict Trump," he titled his video.

As I've said, jury instructions are key to understanding what the chances are of an acquittal or hung jury.

The most bizarre and worrisome thing about these instructions to the jury is that the judge gave jurors an a la carte menu of three choices -- three crimes on which jurors may decide for themselves, individually, not unanimously what they think were Trump's motivations for making 34 bookkeeping notations. All Trump's complicity involves, and I'm not making this up, is if he may have been motivated to win the 2016 election, which means they can conclude he's guilty of a federal or state campaign law, or that he violated a tax law, for which there was no evidence offered.

The only thing they must agree unanimously on are the 34 charged indictments. Prosecutors have hidden the ball on these predicate crime options since they were announced. But one of Alvin Bragg's theories was alluded to in his accompanying letter to the charges. And it's why, the Trump team tried to put on expert witness Brad Smith, who was the former head of the Federal Elections Commission. Smith was to explain why Trump's legal payments to Michael Cohen weren't campaign expenses and why he, as the chairman of the FEC, turned down the request to jack up Trump on charges for them.

In a gasp-inducing decision, Merchan said he would not allow Smith to do anything other than verify definitions of words without offering expert opinion on campaign law. The Trump team decided not to bother. It should have because it may have gotten some leading questions in there, and who knows what would have happened.

Merchan said he didn't want to "confuse" the jurors because he's the arbiter of the law. Merchan is not an expert on campaign law. The decision not to put on Smith and take their chances might be the defense's biggest blunder.

FOX: VERDICT REACHED -- "GUILTY" ON ALL 34 MADE-UP "CRIMES"&bodytext=Oof. We never had much of chance, just a fool's chance. @CollinRugg BREAKING: Donald Trump found GUILTY on 34 of 34 felony counts in the NYC hush money case. The jury deliberated for a total of 9.5 hours over two...&topic=world_news"> posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 05:02 PM

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