ZRX61 wrote: ↑Thu May 30, 2024 4:27 pm
The judge didn't allow the head of the dept that oversees campaign finance to testify...
https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-b ... 7236056289
CLAIM: New York Judge Juan M. Merchan wouldn’t let the defense call campaign finance expert Bradley A. Smith to testify in former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Merchan did not bar Smith from testifying. Trump’s legal team chose to not call on him after the judge on Monday declined to broaden the scope of questioning the defense could pursue. The ruling echoed his pretrial ruling on the matter.
THE FACTS: As the trial continued Tuesday, social media users misrepresented Merchan’s ruling, repeating a statement Trump made that Smith, a law professor and former Republican member of the Federal Election Commission, was not being allowed to take the stand.
“The expert witness that we have, the best there is in election law, Brad Smith, he’s considered the Rolls Royce, or we’ll bring it back to an American car, Cadillac, but the best there is,” Trump said on his way out of court on Monday. “He can’t testify. He’s not being allowed to testify.”
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2 ... t-00158857
Justice Juan Merchan has sharply limited what Trump's planned expert witness can testify about.
Trump's defense team wants to call election law expert Brad Smith to testify about federal campaign finance law. But the judge ruled this morning that allowing Smith to testify expansively on that topic would supplant the judge's role to determine what the law is.
“There is no question this would result in a battle of the experts, which will only serve to confuse, and not assist, the jury,” Merchan declared near the beginning of today's court session.
Merchan did not block Trump from calling Smith, a former member of the Federal Election Commission. But the judge said he’d be restricted to the basics of the FEC and to “general definitions and terms” in campaign finance law, like what counts as a contribution or expenditure.
Trump’s defense wants Smith to testify about the FEC’s policy that expenses that exist “irrespective” of a candidacy are not deemed to be campaign expenditures — evidently as part of an argument that the hush money payment to Stormy Daniels wasn’t campaign-related under federal law.
