Judge who oversaw Trump hush money trial flags post on the court’s webpage claiming to know the verdict before it came down
CNN
The judge who oversaw Donald Trump’s criminal hush money trial in New York on Friday informed the former president’s defense team and prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney’s office that a comment was posted on the New York State Unified Court Systems’ public Facebook page last week by a poster who claimed to be a cousin of a juror, saying that Trump would be convicted.
The judge who oversaw Donald Trump’s criminal hush money trial in New York on Friday informed the former president’s defense team and prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney’s office that a comment was posted on the New York State Unified Court Systems’ public Facebook page last week by a poster who claimed to be a cousin of a juror, saying that Trump would be convicted. “My cousin is a juror and says Trump is getting convicted Thank you folks for all your hard work!!!!” read the comment. It is not clear if there is any validity to the post. No evidence was provided to support the claim, and the jurors’ identities remain anonymous. A search of the poster’s Facebook page showed the poster described themself as “a professional sh*t poster,” among other things. CNN has attempted to contact the poster. Judge Juan Merchan said in a letter that the court had been made aware on Friday of the roughly week-old post, and that it was posted in response to a routine court system notice on May 29 about an unrelated matter. He did not ask the parties to take further action. The post is no longer visible on the court’s Facebook. “As appropriate, the Court informed the parties once it learned of this online content,” Al Baker, a spokesperson for the court, said.
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