Dershowitz slams Merchan's 'ploy' of prematurely announcing Trump sentence

There has been no shortage of critics of the New York hush money case against Donald Trump, but last week's sentencing was, in the eyes of a noted constitutional scholar, a particularly egregious miscarriage of justice.

Famed lawyer and Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz took aim at Judge Juan Merchan for engaging in what he believes was a shameful tactic to thwart the U.S. Supreme Court from intervening in the case on Trump's behalf prior to sentencing, as Breitbart reports.

Dershowitz takes aim

The ire of the longtime defense attorney and constitutional scholar was raised in this instance by the fact that Merchan, well ahead of Friday's sentencing hearing, revealed publicly that he intended to grant Trump an unconditional release in the case.

As such, the president-elect was to be subject to no jail time or financial penalties, sanctions for which his conviction on more than 30 felony counts otherwise potentially provided, and this, according to Dershowitz, was done in order to undermine Trump's appeal to the high court to halt the Friday sentencing and to “persuade” at least two of the justices to decline the case.

“What we saw today was a scam, a ploy. It started with Judge Merchan telling in advance what a sentence was going to be. I've been doing this for years. I've never been told by a judge what the sentence is going to be. When I got into the courtroom with my client, I tell him to bring his toothbrush because he doesn't know whether he's going home or going to Rikers or some other lockup,” he said.

With regard to the justices who declined to hear the matter, Dershowitz added, “And they said the reason we're not taking the case now and stopping the sentencing from going forward was because the judge said in advance that he's not sentencing him to prison. So this was a ploy and the two justices unfortunately fell for the ploy.

Dershowitz's criticism did not stop there, with the esteemed attorney continuing, “This is the worst thing that's happened to the American criminal justice system since McCarthyism and the civil rights abuses back in the 1950s and the victims are the American people.”

Trump slams case, judge

During his virtual appearance at Friday's sentencing, Trump was afforded an opportunity to address the court, and he held little back in his assessment of the case.

As the Associated Press reported, Trump declared, “This has been a very terrible experience, I think it's been a tremendous setback for New York and the New York court system. … I think it's an embarrassment to New York and New York has a lot of problems, but this is a great embarrassment.”

Attacking the substance of the indictment, Trump added, “The falsification of business records, as they said, was calling a legal expense -- in the books where everybody could see them – a legal expense.”

“I get indicted for business records. Everybody should be so accurate. It's been a political witch hunt. It was done to damage my reputation so that I'd lose the election. And obviously that didn't work. And the people of our country got to see this firsthand because they watched the case in your courtroom. And then they voted, and I won,” Trump stated.

The president-elect went on, “The people of this country understand what's gone on. This has been a weaponization of government. They call it lawfare,” and that is why, when mainstream media journalists report with glee during the upcoming inauguration that Trump is a convicted felon, nobody outside their insular orbits will care.