Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” host Joe Scarborough reacted to reporting saying New York prosecutors have assembled a special grand jury to consider evidence in a criminal probe into former President Donald Trump’s business dealings.
Scarborough echoed what he had heard from people in the legal field around New York, which is that unless there is an open and shut case, “you just don’t put a former president on the stand unless you have an open and shut case.” Because of that, the former GOP congressman said not to expect to see Trump on the stand.
Georgetown University law professor Paul Butler stated, “It will be both a pro-prosecution story, but also one designed to see if this case goes to trial and we charge the Trump Organization, we charge individuals, then is that an airtight case? Because … you don’t charge the organization of the former president, and you certainly don’t charge the former president or his family members with a crime unless it’s a slam dunk. Unless you know you can win.”
“I was just going to say I’ve talked not only to legal people around New York but also a lot of political people for the past six months to a year when there was talk of Donald Trump possibly being tried by New York State or by [Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr.]. And their conclusion was the same thing as Paul’s, which is, yeah, we’re probably never going to see the president on the stand,” Scarborough advised. “You just don’t put a former president on the stand unless you have an open and shut case.”
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