Judge rips Trump attorney over ‘outrageous’ statement to jurors
The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s historic hush money trial ripped his defense attorney Tuesday for suggesting to jurors that the former president could be sent to prison if convicted.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan told Trump attorney Todd Blanche that, as a longtime attorney and former prosecutor, he should have known better than to make the “outrageous” and “highly inappropriate” comment.
“That statement was outrageous,” the furious judge said.
“You know that making a comment like that is highly inappropriate,” Merchan added — referring to the fact that jurors are not allowed to take punishment into consideration when deliberating.
“It’s hard for me to imagine that that was accidental.”
Blanche, in his closing argument, had told the jury: “You cannot send someone to prison based on the words of Michael Cohen.”
Prosecutors objected and the judge sustained it, striking the comment from the record, but jurors still heard it.
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After jurors were sent out for lunch, prosecutors claimed the statement “was a blatant and wholly inappropriate effort to call sympathy for their client.”
Merchan said he would talk to jurors about the exchange when trial resumed following the lunch break at 2 p.m.
Blanche’s statement “was improper and you must disregard it,” the judge told them.
