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Judge in Trump's hush money case raises questions about social media post claiming to preview jury verdict

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/judge-trumps-hush-money-case-raises-questions-social-media-post-appear-rcna156128

Judge Juan Merchan asked prosecutors and Trump's defense team about a Facebook post that appeared to preview the outcome of the former president's hush money trial.

Judge in Trump's hush money case raises questions about social media post claiming to preview jury verdict

13 comments

FuglyDuck

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“Today, the Court became aware of a comment that was posted on the Unified Court System’s public Facebook page and which I now bring to your attention,” Judge Juan Merchan wrote in a letter dated Friday.

“My cousin is a juror and said Trump is getting convicted,” the post stated, according to Merchan's letter. “Thank you folks for all your hard work!!!!”

Merchan said that the comment, which was attributed to a user identified as Michael Anderson, was "now labeled as one week old," and was posted in response to a routine notice from the court posted on May 29 about oral arguments unrelated to proceedings in Trump’s case.

for anyone wondering what the comment was. elsewhere, I've read that the account is a common troll of the NY court system, so, probably not even an accurate statement- quite probably a nothing-hamberder.

Riccosuave

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Good to know, but made my asshole pucker a little bit when I first read that because you know he is going to scream bloody murder about this being total proof of impropriety by the jury, which puts them in additional danger among other things...

Theprogressivist

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He's known to post misinformation knowing it'll rile up his rubes. Even if it gets proven as nothing of consequence, his base is already eating it up as politcal persecution.

Nougat

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Whoever posted that is going to learn what the inside of their butthole looks like.

AFKBRBChocolate

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Self described "professional shit poster."

FuglyDuck

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I'm with Nougat. He's about to become very familiar with other people's shit. One might even say intimately familiar.

AFKBRBChocolate

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I hope so, but I'm not sure what he did is expressly illegal. Can anyone say which law he broke if it was indeed a shit post?

FuglyDuck

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I'm not sure on the specifics, but if it could be proven that he interfered in the proceedings of a criminal trial? yeah. there's a charge there.

solidgrue

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This is the court doing its pro forma duties. Of course it's a troll. It'll amount to naught, but it'll be fun watching Team Trump try to make hay of it.

jordanlund

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So, best case scenario... Post was made by a troll unrelated to any of the jurors and this whole thing can be safely ignored.

Worst case? A juror leaked verdict information to their cousin, who blabbed, verdict gets set aside for jury malfeasance and this whole thing starts all over again...

I really hope it's a troll and they get prosecuted for attempted interference.

LimpRimble

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When a defendant who has been convicted by a jury but has not yet been sentenced learns of alleged jury misconduct, he can move to set aside the verdict under New York criminal procedure law. If a defendant can prove that jury misconduct “may have affected a substantial right of the defendant,” the remedy is a new trial.

FiniteBanjo

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Well at least they'll have to prove the claim before requesting a new trial.

autotldr

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This is the best summary I could come up with:

The New York judge overseeing Donald Trump's hush money trial has asked attorneys in the case about a social media post purporting to preview the former president's guilty verdict.

“Today, the Court became aware of a comment that was posted on the Unified Court System’s public Facebook page and which I now bring to your attention,” Judge Juan Merchan wrote in a letter dated Friday.

Merchan said that the comment, which was attributed to a user identified as Michael Anderson, was "now labeled as one week old," and was posted in response to a routine notice from the court posted on May 29 about oral arguments unrelated to proceedings in Trump’s case.

NBC News has not verified the claims made in the comment or the identity of the user who published the post, which has since been deleted.

Trump was convicted last month on 34 counts of falsifying business records tied to reimbursing Cohen for hush money paid to Daniels in the final days of the 2016 campaign.

Trump had pleaded not guilty in the case and denied Daniels’ claims that she had a sexual encounter with him in 2006.

The original article contains 324 words, the summary contains 189 words. Saved 42%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!