OPINION:
New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan is moving America toward a constitutional crisis.
A state-appointed judge is repeatedly threatening to jail a former president of the United States — the nominee of a major party and the front-runner to become the next president.
Judge Merchan’s comments on April 30 that former President Donald Trump could face an “incarceratory punishment” set the stage for chaos.
This past Monday, Judge Merchan made his threat even more explicit. He said: “As much as I do not want to impose a jail sanction, I want you to understand that I will if it’s necessary and appropriate. It appears that the $1,000 fines are not serving as a deterrent. Therefore, going forward, this court will have to consider a jail sanction.”
Wrapping himself in piety, Mr. Merchan continued: “The last thing I want to do is put you in jail. You are the former president of the United States and possibly the next president as well. There are many reasons why incarceration is truly a last resort for me.”
Baloney. This was Judge Merchan and the pro-Biden establishment’s goal all along. Since October, I have warned that they would systematically impose impossible gag orders on Mr. Trump, hoping that they could hold him in contempt and put him in jail.
The pro-Biden forces’ answer to their own candidate’s terrible poll numbers is still simply to lock up his opponent.
This is without precedent in American history.
It had never occurred to President John Adams that he could jail his primary competitor, Vice President Thomas Jefferson, even though Jefferson would defeat him in the 1800 election.
It never occurred to President John Quincy Adams, Adams’ son, that he could imprison Andrew Jackson — even though the latter spent four years attacking John Quincy Adams in often vicious and hostile ways.
Only with the desperation of President Biden and his fanatic left-wing enforcers did it become possible to think about arresting and jailing their major political competitor.
This New York case is a clear example of corruption and the replacement of the rule of law with the law of power.
New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg ran for office promising he would prosecute Mr. Trump. His campaign speeches reflected the view of Stalin’s former KGB chief Lavrentiy Beria: “You show me the man, and I will show you the crime.”
The Biden administration, weighed down by performance failures and ideological weirdness, knows that it is likely to lose the election. Earlier efforts to scar Mr. Trump up through lawsuits and court cases have clearly failed. In fact, the administration’s use of lawfare to persecute Mr. Trump solidified the former president’s support among Republicans and made him the GOP nominee faster and more decisively.
Now, faced with an increasing likelihood of defeat, the Biden forces are determined to put Mr. Trump in jail.
First, this is unbelievably dangerous to Mr. Trump. Consider the violent and sometimes deranged people locked up in New York jails. How could any decent citizen consider placing a former president of the United States in that kind of danger?
But the hatred on the left is reaching a level of anger and fear that makes anything possible.
The White House sent Matthew Coleangelo, the No. 3 attorney in the Justice Department, to lead the prosecution of Mr. Trump. This made perfect sense because Mr. Coleangelo had worked as a political consultant for the Democratic National Committee in 2018. He is clearly a partisan attack dog.
Judge Merchan is equally guilty of bias and arrogance, which is unimaginable in a case involving the leader of the opposition party and former president of the United States.
As I recently wrote, the judge’s daughter has made millions running anti-Trump campaigns for Democratic organizations and candidates.
Judge Merchan himself has shown an anti-Trump bias from the beginning of the trial.
Former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy has noted that Judge Merchan himself donated to Mr. Biden’s campaign and that he intentionally wanted to hide his daughter’s political ties through arbitrary gag orders.
As George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley explained on Fox News’ “America Reports,” the so-called hush-money case has no legal legs on which to stand. The statute of limitations on the allegations that Mr. Trump lied on business records has passed. Further, the federal government declined to prosecute allegations that Mr. Trump was illegally attempting to influence the election. So, this is a trial for a crime that doesn’t exist.
As Mr. Turley said: “This is a Frankenstein case. They took a dead misdemeanor, attached it to a dead alleged federal felony, and zapped it back into life. So many of us are just amazed to watch this actually walk into court because it’s not a recognizable crime that any of us have seen.”
Mr. Turley isn’t the only one with this position.
Harvard professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz wrote: “I’ve been doing this sixty years, and I don’t understand what crime he’s being charged with. … I just don’t get the crime. There’s no evidence of any crime whatsoever. … This is just a sham.”
But you don’t need a law degree to understand what’s happening. We are drifting toward a constitutional crisis orchestrated by pro-Biden forces who don’t want to see an election happen.
This case must be taken out of Judge Merchan’s hands before he jails a former president and endangers our democracy.
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