Trump's new comments will 'rub the judge the wrong way' at sentencing: former prosecutor
Ever since former President Donald Trump was convicted on 34 counts of felony falsification of business records in New York, he has been vowing retribution against everyone who made it happen, even telling Dr. Phil in an interview, "sometimes revenge can be justified."
This is going to come back to haunt him when Judge Juan Merchan hands down a sentence, former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann told MSNBC's Chris Hayes on Friday evening.
"That is normally the kind of thing you might want to say after you are sentenced, not before," said Weissmann. "Because Judge Merchan can consider all of that in sentencing him on July 11th."
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"Yeah," said Hayes. "You said this — I was struck by this — you said 'The statements of retribution against [Manhattan District Attorney Alvin] Bragg and other perceived enemies are facts that Judge Merchan can and should consider on July 11th when sentencing Trump.' What is the category of things the judge can and should consider in this circumstance?"
"One of the things the judge can consider is remorse, acceptance of responsibility, and the reason it is correct to laugh is that this is sort of the poster child for lack of remorse," said Weissmann. "And there is a difference between someone who says, you know what, I am appealing the conviction so I can't tell you that I did it, and someone who is brazenly saying, not only did I not do it, but the people who are in charge of this, there should be retribution against them. Yeah, the judge, the prosecutors, the jurors. That is the kind of thing that — to say that is going to rub the judge the wrong way is to put it mildly."
Trump's behavior here, Weissmann added, "really goes to sort of a fundamental risk of recidivism, a lack of understanding about the rule of law, and it also fundamentally does not understand that facts matter. This is a jury that was assessing facts and witnesses, mostly witnesses who are aligned with Donald Trump, who said things that were incredibly damaging. And so, this isn't something where you can just say, oh, I am going to wave a magic wand and there will be retribution against my enemies. You know what? The reason that hasn't happened is because there are no facts to support anything like that."
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