31 May 2024
The judge who presided over Donald Trump’s business fraud trial is the target of a wave of rightwing misinformation in the wake of his conviction on business fraud charges, the Guardian’s Gloria Oladipo reports:
Juan Merchan, the judge who oversaw the New York hush-money trial of
Donald Trump, is facing fresh threats to his safety after false reports about jury instructions have circulated online.
Several rightwing pundits, including a Fox News anchor, have incorrectly reported that Merchan told jurors they did not need to be unanimous in finding Trump guilty in order to convict him,
NBC News reported.
“Judge Merchan just told the jury that they do not need unanimity to convict,” Fox News anchor John Roberts
posted to X on Wednesday. “4 could agree on one crime, 4 on a different one, and the other 4 on another. He said he would treat 4-4-4 as a unanimous verdict.”
Roberts’s post has been viewed almost 6m times.
Misinformation on Merchan’s instructions have drawn threats of violence, especially after Trump was
found guilty of all 34 counts of falsifying business records in the hush-money trial on Thursday.
On Gab, a social media site popular among far-right users, one person said it was “time to find out where that judge lives and protest as the left calls it”, NBC reported.
Others in pro-Trump forums accused Merchan of treason, and suggested that he should be hanged for his participation in the trial, an echo of rioters at the January 6 attack on the US Capitol by extremist Trump supporters who
called for Mike Pence, then the vice-president, to be hanged for refusing to block the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.
The president said ‘Donald Trump was given every opportunity to defend himself’ and ‘no one is above the law’. This blog is now closed.
www.theguardian.com
Rightwing pundits incorrectly report Juan Merchan told jurors they didn’t need to be unanimous in finding Trump guilty
www.theguardian.com