In Major Defection, Former Trump Ally Predicts Guilty Verdict
Former Trump White House attorney Ty Cobb believes that Donald Trump can expect a guilty verdict in his New York hush money-trial.
“I expect a ‘GUILTY’ verdict, but only because the jury instructions as urged by the DA and adopted by the judge, over strenuous and well founded defense objections, virtually require conviction,” Cobb told Semafor Tuesday.
In order to find Trump guilty of felony-level falsification of business documents, the jurors must unanimously agree that he did so in order to further an underlying or separate crime. But last week, against the best efforts of Trump’s legal team, Judge Juan Merchan ruled that the jury will not necessarily need to agree on what those separate or underlying crimes are.
“I reach this legal conclusion because of my long experience as a federal prosecutor and white collar defense lawyer, my reverence for the rule of law, and despite my view that Trump remains the greatest threat to Democracy in our nation’s history,” Cobb said.
The former White House attorney also expects the jury to deliver its verdict by the end of the week—assuming the deliberations follow an old rule of thumb.
“Jury deliberations are always difficult to predict, of course, but one marginally useful rule of thumb is ‘assume one day for each week of trial,’” Cobb explained. “Here even though there were five weeks of evidence, they were short weeks due to the Court not sitting on Wednesdays and to other days or partial days off. So think of it as 4 weeks of evidence. If the jury begins deliberations Tuesday afternoon, expect a verdict no later than Friday afternoon.”
Trump is accused of using his former fixer Michael Cohen to sweep an affair with porn star Stormy Daniels under the rug ahead of the 2016 presidential election. The Republican presidential nominee faces 34 felony charges in this case for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime. Trump has pleaded not guilty on all counts.
