Dr. Phil, who started his career as a courtroom consultant, criticized the handling of the criminal trial against former President Trump over hush money payments as smacking “of banana republic tactics” by the prosecution and New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan.
In his latest podcast episode posted on Tuesday, Dr. Phil interviewed Rod Phelan, a well-known Dallas lawyer, in which both criticized the handling of Mr. Trump’s trial and the guilty verdict handed down by the jury last week, making a former president a felon for the first time in the country’s history.
“I’m trying to figure out how trying to cover something up that was not illegal, makes it illegal?” said Dr. Phil on his podcast “Phil in the Blanks.”
He said the standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt” that jurors must reach to convict a defendant is a “pretty high standard,” and that defendants should be entitled to face their accusers, know the crime for which they are charged, and be found guilty by a unanimous jury.
“They just ran all over these standards in this case, and if they can do that to a former president of the United States and that is allowed to stand, what happens to the average citizen?” Dr. Phil said. “Isn’t this jeopardizing all of us?”
“It smacks of banana republic tactics,” he said.
Phil McGraw founded Courtroom Sciences Inc., a consulting firm that offered lawyers advice on how to present their cases based on his psychology background, in 1990 before he made it big with his television show, “Dr. Phil.”
On Thursday, a jury in New York found Mr. Trump guilty on 34 felony counts for falsifying business records over money paid to porn actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election to keep her quiet about an alleged affair a decade earlier.
His former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid Ms. Daniels $130,000 not to talk to the press about the affair, which Mr. Trump denies having. The money was logged in company records as legal expenses.
Prosecutors charged the falsified business records were done to cover up another crime such as a campaign finance violation, though the judge did not require the underlying crime to be specified for the conviction.
The judge also did not require the jury to be in unanimous agreement about what underlying crime was committed.
Mr. Trump has said he is not guilty of any crime. He plans to appeal.
• Alex Swoyer can be reached at aswoyer@washingtontimes.com.
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