‘Stalinism:’ Alan Dershowitz Sounds Off On Trump’s Sentencing In ‘Sham’ Hush Money Case

Veteran attorney Alan Dershowitz and Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett ripped into Manhattan Judge Juan Merchan after he opted to schedule President-elect Donald Trump’s sentencing in the highly controversial “hush money” case just under two weeks before Trump is set to be inaugurated for his second term.

In a filing released Friday evening, Merchan scheduled Trump’s sentencing for January 10, just 10 days before he will be inaugurated for the second time. After initially postponing sentencing in the dubious case indefinitely, the Democrat judge ruled that there is “no legal impediment” to moving forward with sentencing.

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During Friday’s episode of “Hannity,” guest host Jason Chaffetz asked the two legal analysts for their thoughts on the last-minute development.

“Judge Merchan is determined to stain Donald Trump with a label convicted felon. To do that though, he has to sentence him before inauguration. Otherwise he can’t really technically call him a convicted felon. So, Merchan is dangling what he thinks is a tantalizing offer. Agree to be sentenced next Friday, Mr. Trump, and there will be no incarceration or probation or anything, complete discharge,” Jarrett said.

He went on to point to the convoluted nature of the case, which involved Bragg’s use of COVID-era statutes to upgrade misdemeanor bookkeeping violations — which had long exceeded past statutes of limitations — to 34 felony charges. Bragg’s case hinged on the notion that Trump intentionally falsified business records in order to conceal another crime, though the supposed additional crime was never identified.

Jurors were told by Judge Merchan that they did not need to agree on what the additional crime even was.

“Well, I doubt that Donald Trump will bite, and he shouldn’t bite,” Jarrett continued. “He was found guilty by a biased jury of crimes that don’t even exist under the law. He was all but framed by a politically driven DA who worked in concert with a hostile judge who was required to recuse himself but refused to do it. So this turned out to be a sham trial based on a convoluted, incoherent legal theory. As you point out, it was utterly absurd, was rife with reversible errors by the judge, and it will eventually get overturned.”

Dershowitz agreed with Jarrett’s assessment and framed the prosecution as an example of a Soviet-style show trial. “This is the worst instance of Stalinism in my 60-year career. Stalin was told, ‘Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime.’ So Letitia James, the Democratic attorney general, and Alvin Bragg, the Democratic DA, tried to find a crime to convict Trump of, but they couldn’t,” he said. “They couldn’t find the crime. They searched the books. They couldn’t find the crime, so they made one up out of whole cloth. A totally made-up case. If they can make up a case against Donald Trump, they can make it up against you too.”

“Now they’re trying to avoid him getting an appeal. One way of avoiding him getting an appeal was not sentencing him. Now they’re going to sentence him,” the veteran attorney added. “There’s another possibility. The governor may pardon him. If the governor pardons him, then he still has the stigma of a conviction, and there’s a question about whether he can appeal if he’s been pardoned.”

Dershowitz went on to speculate that both Bragg and Merchan believe the case will eventually be overturned on appeal.

“They’re looking at every possible way of avoiding an appellate reversal because any decent appellate court, any decent appellate court, will reverse this conviction for a dozen different reasons. One, there was no crime. Two, there was immunity. Three, error after error after error. Four, recusal and disqualification. The worst criminal case in my memory. The worst,” he said.

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