Trump Witness Merchan Silenced Speaks Out: Brad Smith Explains What He Would Have Told Jury

Brad Smith, the Trump witness who was essentially silenced by Judge Juan Merchan in former President Donald Trump’s business records trial, revealed what he would have told the jury had he been able to testify, noting that he would have tried to “lay out some of the factual work of the law” and how it works in “practice.”

Speaking to Byron York of Washington Examiner, Smith — who was barred by Merchan from testifying about campaign finance laws, which are at the crux of the business records trial — explained that he would not have delved into specifics, but would have tried to break down campaign finance law, as it is extremely complicated.

According to York, Smith planned to “lay out the ways the law has been interpreted in ways that might not be obvious”:

As an example, Smith cited the phrase “for the purpose of influencing an election,” which has been heard during much analysis of the trial. “You read the law and it says that anything intended for the purpose of influencing an election is a contribution or an expenditure,” Smith explained. “But that’s not in fact the entirety of the law. There is the obscure, and separate from the definitional part, idea of personal use, which is a separate part of the law that says you can’t divert campaign funds to personal use. That has a number of specific prohibitions, like you can’t buy a country club membership, you can’t normally pay yourself a salary or living expenses, you can’t go on vacation — all these kinds of things. And then it includes a broader, general prohibition that says you can’t divert [campaign funds] to any obligation that would exist even if you were not running for office.”

What is the point of that? “We would have liked to flag that exception for the jury and talk a little bit about what it means,” Smith said. “And also, we would have talked about ‘for the purpose of influencing an election’ is not a subjective test, like ‘What was my intention?’ — it’s an objective test. So hiring campaign staff is for the purpose of influencing an election. Renting space for your campaign office, buying ads, maybe doing polling, printing up bumper stickers, travel to campaign rallies, renting venues for campaign rallies — all of those things exist only because you are running for office. But under the personal use rules, a lot of things candidates do running for office are not considered campaign expenditures, things like paying for a weight loss program or a gym membership, nicer clothes, teeth whitening, or all that sort of thing. It may be true that you do those things in part to help yourself get elected — you might not do them otherwise — but they are not obligations that exist simply because you are running for office. Lots of people do those things.”