ABOVE: Attorney Paul Ingrassia (standing, left) behind Real America’s Voice correspondent Lara Loomer and literally HUNDREDS of reporters outside the court as Trump’s trial began on Monday, April 15, 2024.
‘New York City boasts one of the most hostile jury pools in the nation to conservatives in general and [to] Trump supporters in particular. ‘Bad-faith, Soros-funded actors’ determined Trump’s guilt before he showed up.
By Paul Ingrassia, Contributor | The Gateway Pundit
[Ingrassia is a Constitutional scholar, a two-time Claremont Fellow and an advisor to the NY Young Republican Club and the Italian American Civil Rights League. He writes a widely read Substack column frequently re-Truthed by President Trump.]
President Trump is being whisked into Judge Merchan’s courthouse, beginning early Monday morning, before what is sure to be an unfair and biased proceeding implicating the presidential frontrunner.
First, the venue – perhaps behind only Washington, DC — New York City boasts one of the most hostile jury pools in the nation to conservatives in general, and Trump supporters in particular.
If we were operating under a normal system of justice that upheld traditional standards of judicial ethics, no jury would be allowed to draw its members from Manhattan, the most left-wing of the five boroughs in which over three in four residents voted for Biden over Trump in 2020.
If preserving the integrity of New York’s now deeply tarnished judicial system were an actual concern, Donald Trump’s counsel would have the ability to transfer venue to a district, such as upstate New York or Long Island (or out of state altogether), that would select from a more ideologically diverse pool of jurors – allowing him at least a fighting shot to convince them of his innocence in court.
(Of course, if integrity were truly the driving consideration, this case would have been dead on arrival.) This would be preferable to being damned by a system overseen by bad-faith, Soros-funded actors like Letitia James and Alvin Bragg, who predetermined the 45th President’s guilt before he set foot in the courtroom.
Second, the judge. Judge Merchan is conflicted beyond repair. In a case that rivals, maybe even surpasses, the improprieties of the Fani Willis debacle, Judge Merchan, through his immediate family connections, has proven himself incapable of presiding over a fair trial – even if he tried – because of the conflict of interest that exists between him, his court, and the Biden Regime.
For one, Biden’s Justice Department tapped Matthew Colangelo, a senior level political appointee, to work closely alongside far-left District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, to investigate Michael Cohen’s alleged payment to Stormy Daniels, the basis for the underlying indictment.
Colangelo’s insertion into the investigation reeks of banana republic justice – and not just because of his direct ties to the Biden Regime, which is bad enough.
But, worse, his appointment came years after a series of district attorneys (including Bragg’s immediate predecessor, Cyrus Vance Jr.), special counsels, government agencies, and justice department officials evaluated the case, determined there was nothing to prosecute, and passed it over.
Stormy Daniels is not a new face – the public is already keenly aware of who she is, and all the major players (Michael Cohen and Michael Avenatti) involved. News of the alleged hush money payment is ancient history.
Both Cohen and Avenatti have been proven time and again to be fraudsters: Cohen was sentenced to federal prison for lying to Congress, and Avenatti is currently serving a ten-plus year federal prison sentence for extortion.
In 2018, Daniels penned a letter which stated, “each party to this alleged affair denied its existence in 2006, 2011, 2016, 2017, and now again in 2018,” and that “I am denying this affair because it never happened.”
Only once Biden came to power and his goons were ordered to encourage the far-left Bragg, who himself was even long diffident about prosecuting the case – even going so far as to place the case on hold after telling the New York Times that “he had doubts about moving forward with a case” against President Trump, did the case get a lifeline.
This prompted the two radical far-left prosecutors in Bragg’s office: Cary Dunne and Mark Pomerantz (who also is permanently conflicted with major ties to Hillary Clinton), to resign in protest.
Though a leftwing commie himself, Bragg has clearly been getting additional pressure from Clinton and Biden proxies to move forward with this prosecution – as bald-faced a political prosecution as there is, which has ratcheted up in recent weeks especially now that President Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee with poll numbers that consistently eclipse Biden’s in a general election matchup.
Then, there is the scandal involving Merchan’s daughter. As brilliantly exposed by Laura Loomer, Merchan’s impartiality has been irreparably muddied by reports that his daughter, Loren, serves as President of an organization called “Authentic,” which describes itself as a “digital agency” that “partner[s] with clients to build award-winning programs for progressive causes and campaigns.”
The organization proudly boasts Kamala Harris and Adam Schiff, who pushed the debunked Steele dossier claiming Russian meddling in the 2016 election, as two of its most valued clients.
Other clients featured on the organization’s website are the Biden Harris Campaign, Governor Gavin Newsom, Governor Kathy Hochul, and Rep. Ilhan Omar, among countless other far-left progressive Democrats.
To occupy such a high leadership role in a group whose client is, incredulously, the “Biden Harris campaign” is the paradigmatic example of a conflict of interest. And not that further evidence to support a conflict would be needed, but Loomer’s research also uncovered that, per FEC public filings, Loren donated thousands of dollars directly to Democratic politicians.
Thus, there is no chance that impartiality could be established for Judge Merchan’s courtroom – even the appearance of impropriety is sufficient, under the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct, to disqualify a Judge because of a conflict.
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ATTENTION: I will be covering President Trump’s trial in lower Manhattan [today] and throughout the week, on the Pro America Report with Ed Martin on Rumble. I will feature in my live reporting highlights from the scene and key interviews with major Trump surrogates from the ground. Join me all week on the live Rumble broadcast at: https://rumble.com/c/ProAmericaReport. ##