CNN commentator Michael Smerconish schooled his own audience on Saturday after they overwhelmingly endorsed the Justice Department’s decision to bring Donald Trump to trial before the 2024 election.
Last Monday, the US Supreme Court agreed to consider Donald Trump‘s argument that presidential immunity shields him from criminal prosecution in special counsel Jack Smith’s election interference investigation.
The ruling caused crying and, for some, raised TDS levels significantly among liberals because the court scheduled oral arguments for the week of April 22. That implies the justices will most likely not make a ruling until the end of June. And, with court processes frozen until their ruling, Trump’s trial will not begin until late summer, at the most.
That schedule raises a fundamental issue: DOJ policy expressly prohibits meddling in elections and being affected by political winds, and accelerating Trump’s trial may violate that long-standing policy.
However, CNN viewers appear to be unconcerned about the fairness and attention to justice that the policy is intended to protect.
On Saturday, Smerconish surveyed his audience with the following question: “Is it appropriate for DOJ to try Trump in the fall of 2024?” With nearly 40,000 votes, 88% of his audience answered “yes” to the DOJ’s decision to charge Trump, breaking long-standing policy.
VISIT OUR YOUTUBE CHANNELSmerconish was evidently stunned by the outcome.
“Oh, come on, guys! Ladies!” Smerconish exclaimed.
“My disappointment is—put that camera on me for a second—it’s not that lopsided a question. It is not a 90-percenter. Like, you’re making me think that if instead the poll question today was, ‘Why don’t we just dispense with the trial and move right to the sentencing phase?’ That would probably beget 82% of the audience today,” he chastised.
“No. That’s the wrong answer — at least by that margin,” he admonished.
Earlier in the broadcast, Smerconish spoke with legal expert Elie Honig, who described why he is concerned by Smith’s eagerness to bring Trump to trial. He said:
“If you look at the actual Justice Manual — now, this is essentially the internal Bible for DOJ; we all have them printed out on our desks — there’s a provision in there that says, ‘Prosecutors should never select the timing of any action — let me say that again, any action — with the election in mind, with the timing of the election in mind.'”
“And it’s hard for me to square that with Jack Smith making decisions, asking for trial, asking for everything to be mega-expedited, because even though we won’t say it, I don’t think anyone would disagree that what’s motivating him is the Election Day. So I do think that that violates DOJ’s own internal manual.”
WATCH:
After educating his audience, Smerconish utilized Honig’s argument of why putting Trump to trial this fall is problematic.
“Elie Honig made an excellent point. If we’re up against the clock in concluding the federal prosecutions of Donald Trump, it’s not Trump and his lawyers or SCOTUS’ fault. It’s Merrick Garland’s fault because he lollygagged,” Smerconish explained.
“So Trump is doing what any defendant would do in that case, but he’d run out of time if Garland had gotten off the dime. That’s the bottom line,” he stated.
Here’s a video I did last month on a poll that showed a whopping 78% of Democrats openly support rigging the election against Trump. That party is lost. It is unsalvageable at this point. If they don’t turn that ship around soon, they will go the way of the Whigs.
#TrumpTrial #DOJDecision #SmerconishTalks
