Trump Sentencing: Equity Over Competence

be able to talk about anything else. But there is other news happening, the California wildfire, President Trump's sentencing, So we're going to get to all these things, but just know that ninety nine percent of my brain capacity is overwhelmed with Notre Dame football at the moment, So you'll just have to bear with me in that regard. Let's

talk about Trump's sentencing. Trump was sentenced today by Judge Murchon for his guilt for his having been found guilty in Manhattan for the case, as every media outlet is incorrectly saying, for his hush money case. No, Trump wasn't found guilty for hush money, whatever that means. It is legal to pay someone money in exchange for a non

disclosure agreement. The actual thing that he was found guilty of was allegedly, I would say, I don't think it's clear, and I frankly just disagree with the jury on this falsifying business records in furtherance of another felony. What that other felony is, you know, it was a name your own, decide your own adventure question. Now I want to talk about the sentencing and what the significance of it is and why for the left it matters so dramatically. So

here's a thing about being a convicted felon. Quote. Ever since Trump was found guilty by the jury in this Manhattan case, which I believe was in May, the left has been referring to him as a convicted felon. A lot of people on the left have been referring to him as a convicted felon. But that is not, strictly speaking true. Trump had not up to this point been a convicted felon. You are only convicted after the judge has entered a sentence against you. The jury has found

you guilty. They said, okay, these were the charges, we've had the trial, we have found you guilty. But you're not actually a convicted felon. You are not actually convicted of whatever the charges your felon or your misdemeanor, whatever it is, until the judge enters a sentence against you, and that rhetoric, that wording, that rhetorical point of being able legitimately in the media to refer to Donald Trump as a convicted felon. That is the point of this.

Here you have Judge murch On an actual, honest to God, Joe Biden donor, I'm not exaggerating there, and honest to God, Joe Biden donor in Judge Juan Merchon, who is the New York State judge who has overseen this trial, whose daughter was a major fundraiser bundler working on behalf of a number of Democratic campaigns, including Kamala Harris's, who never accused himself from the case in spite of those obvious appearance of conflicts, and has ruled against Trump consistently every

single step of the way, ruled in favor of everything Alvin Bragg wanted to do, every single step of the way, and even in this sentencing has seemingly been more aggressively anti Trump, even than Alvin Bragg, the District Attorney of Manhattan, has been, who's actually the one prosecuting the case, he has been dismissive at every step of the way of legal claim of arguments. Trump has advanced arguments. Trump's lawyers have made that, hey, this evidence should didn't come in.

It's irrelevant, it inflames the jury. It's not and has does. Every single significant moment of this trial has cited against Trump and in favor of Alvin Braggett, every single critical juncture. Letting in evidence that was not relevant, I think maybe one of the most egregious examples of this. So this is one of the things a judge has to do.

The sort of gatekeeping that a judge has to do over the course of the trial is determining what evidence is relevant to the charges at hand, versus what kind of evidence is maybe not all that relevant and could actually be overly prejudicial and influenced the jury for something

that isn't relevant. I think the best example of this was merch On allowing Stormy Daniels to testify the case wasn't about whether or not Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels had an affair that actually wasn't really the case the trial, The actual allegations against Trump were that he falsified business records in finalizing the payments that ultimately went to Stormy Daniels in exchange for her non disclosure agreement that he characterized those payments that went to his lawyer, Michael Cohen.

So basically, it was Stormy Daniels signs a non disclosure agreement saying she will not talk about this story about her affair that she allegedly had with Donald Trump. She agrees to this before the twenty sixteen election. After the she then gets paid for signing this non disclosure agreement. She gets paid directly by Michael Cohen, donald Trump's lawyer.

Trump then reimburses Michael Cohen the Trump organization. In paying Michael Cohen characterized these payments, which was a set of it was, I think it was seventeen individual payments that were made over the course of about a year to Michael Cohen, and characterized each of those payments as paying quote, legal fees rather than loan repayment. That's the crime Trump is accused of calling in his business records those payments legal fees rather than loan repayment. Now, actually, it's not

like anyone was harmed by this transaction. If I mean, the taxpayers of New York and federal taxpayers certainly weren't harmed by it. Because basically, if you pay someone, if I repay you a loan, the money you get as repayment for the loan, that does not count as income to you. But if you're my lawyer and I pay you something that's called attorney's fees, you have to pay

taxes on it. So actually what Trump wound up doing was paying Cohen more than what Cohen had paid Stormy Daniels, because Cohen was saying to Trump, Hey, like, I paid Stormy all these money. If you're giving me this as attorney's fees, you know you have to give me more than what I gave Stormy Daniels because I got to pay taxes on this. So Trump gave him actually more than that, so that Cohen would, you know, not lose

money in the deal. So actually, the taxpayers of New York, slash the federal government, the state of New York, and the federal government actually got more tax revenue out of the deal based on how this was set up. And I think, frankly, there's a decent argument to be made that this isn't really fraudulent or a falsification of business records to call this payment attorney's fees rather than loan repayment.

Cohen was Trump's lawyer. He was doing this work on behalf of Trump getting this NBA situation sorted out with Stormy Daniels. Now regardless, that was the charge. Having Stormy Daniels come in to testify that she had an affair with Donald Trump and all of a sudden to change her story. The whole narrative of her discussion about her affair with Donald Trump had been that it was consensual, and all of a sudden in the middle of the trial to try to allege that maybe it wasn't consensual.

Dropping that bit of knowledge on the jury, of course, is hugely prejudicial against Trump, but is also completely irrelevant to the charge. Whether Trump had an affair with Stormy Daniels or not makes no difference to the charge, which is did you appropriately label these payments to Michael Cohen? Are they attorney's fees or are they loan repayment? That's the trial. Is it attorney's fees or loan repayment. It's not about whether or not Stormy Daniels had an affair

with Trump. That's actually irrelevant. Bringing her in having her testify, and then all of a sudden in the trial, changing her testimony to say that her relationship with Trump may not have been consensual, that Trump may have kind of forced himself on her, was wildly prejudicial to Trump, and

merchan just lets it in. And at every step of the process, Bragg was trying to in introduce more and more evidence that didn't really advance his actual allegations of you know, were these business records falsified that were hugely prejudicial to the jury. He also advanced this novel legal theory that he didn't have to specifically define what the

felony was. So in New York law, if you just falsify business records, usually it's a misdemeanor, but it can be a felony if the falsification of business records is done in furtherance of another felony. What was the other felony Bragg didn't say. He said it could have been in furtherance of violating federal election law, could have been in furtherance of violating New York election law, could have

been in furtherance of it. He never defined it in the indictment, and merch On allowed this to go on.

So let's just be clear. Merchon, a Biden donor, a small dollar Biden donor whose daughter worked for the worked as a fundraiser for a bunch of Democrats, including Kamala Harris, who at every step of the trial ruled against Donald Trump in every relevant way, at every critical moment, ruled against Donald Trump, who refused to delay the sentencing in light of a Supreme Court decision directly on point, directly relating to this case, which we're going to talk about

in the next segment, is giving Donald Trump. Gives Donald Trump a sentence today? Why, Because, as I said at the start of the segment, you're not actually a convicted felon until the judge gives you the sentence. Merchon could very easily have said, listen, this guy is assuming the office of presidents of the United States. I know that I'm not giving him any jail time. It's not urgent. Therefore, he's not some clear and present physical danger to society.

The sense I'm not going to give him the sentence I'm gonna give him that will not include any incarceration. It's whatever it is. It'll be like a fine, it'll be whatever it's gonna be. There are also serious legal challenges because of a recent Supreme Court decision that Trump's side has raised and will certainly raise on appeal. So do I need to sentence him right now? Or maybe I can just wait four years until this man is done being the president of the United States. There are

real national interests at play here. That would have been a totally reasonable thing for merch On to do, to say, listen, like, let's delay this sentence until after he's done being president. But no merch On, in this petty little hashtag resistance way, because this is the one little thing, this one little man can do to harm Donald Trump is saying no, you can appeal me, which is an attitude from judges that I just despise. They know they're wrong. Sometimes judges

will do this. Judges will know they're wrong, but they'll feel so secure in their job they'll just say, ah, you can just appeal me if you don't like my decision. Appeal it, which for someone who's not you know, for a defendant who's not Donald Trump. You know, Donald Trump's got a lot of money. You know, a lot of defendants can't afford appellate attorneys. That's really expensive. Eh. If

you don't like it, just appeal me. Judge murch On is basically, I want the media to be able to call Donald Trump on inauguration Day, the first convicted felon to ever be sworn in as president. It's that little petty, little rhetorical thing that the media wants to be able to do, that the Left wants to be able to say,

and Merchon's giving that to them. That's all. This is when we return the massive Supreme Court decision about presidential immunity, which is the reason why Murchon should not be sentencing

Trump today. That's next on the John Gurwardy Show. I think the main reason why it's so wrong for Judge Murchon to have entered this criminal sentence against Donald Trump today, this no jail time sentence which is being done, I think purely for the rhetorical effect that the media is now going to be allowed to call Donald Trump on inauguration Day, the first convicted felon in history to be

elected president, to be sworn in as president. I think maybe the chief reason why it's ridiculous is the Supreme Court's decision on immunity. Now in between the jury in the Manhattan Trump case, which again is not a hush money case. The charge was that Trump falsified business records, characterized the money he paid back to Michael Cohen. Colin paid Stormy Daniel's money in exchange for a non disclosure agreement. Not illegal, not illegal.

The reason why that maybe the most significant reason why Merchon's sentencing of Trump should not happen today is because of the Supreme Court's immunity decision, which came down in between the jury in Manhattan finding Trump guilty and this sentencing today. So about a month after Trump was found guilty,

the Supreme Court issued this decision about presidential immunity. So the idea is basically as a function of separation of powers, allowing the president, as the executive of the federal government, the head of the executive branch to allow the president to function in that role, to perform the critical duties of his role. He needs. Sorry, he's going through you know, I was yelling so much last night during the Notre Dame game. I'm completely horse on the radio. Here we go.

The president needs to have the ability to do the work of the presidency without the constant fear that he is going to be subject to prosecution later on for his official acts. Okay, Congress has that kind of protection. It's sort of explicitly built into the Constitution that you can't hold a member of Congress liable for something they're saying on the floor of the House of Representatives as

part of their job. Okay, you're not going to hold members of Congress liable because they passed a law that the Supreme Court later struck down as unconstitutional that might have harmed you. Members of Congress have the sort of immunity knowing they're not going to be subject to criminal trials or civil trials as a result of doing their jobs.

What the Supreme Court basically determined this was in the context of various other Trump trials, specifically arising out of the January sixth litigation, but applying now to this Manhattan case is that the president is immune from criminal prosecution for anything involving his official acts as president. Now, what are a president's official acts. Well, the court didn't one hundred percent define it, but clearly there are some things

that are core to being president. Having conversations with your attorney general, about having conversations with your attorney general, working on policy things, discussions with other members of your cabinet. Of these things are part and parcel of your core presidential responsibilities. Now, doing a campaign thing maybe not necessarily

part of your official duties. There's a difference between a president who's, you know, campaigning for reelection, who's talking with his campaign staff, versus the president talking with the attorney general about DJ matters. So the Supreme Court said the president is immune from prosecution for his official acts, and furthermore, is insulated from having evidence of his official acts used

against him in criminal trials. Clearly, this prosecution by Merchon relied upon a whole bunch of evidence of what was clearly Trump's official acts. Alvin Bragg's attorneys entered into evidence during Trump's trial conversations he was having with the Attorney general conversations he was having with members of his cabinet, and he called some of that evidence quote devastating. His

lawyers called some of that evidence devastating. Brad can't turn around reasonably and say, oh, well, it wasn't actually that devastating. A lot of that evidence was entered against Trump during this Manhattan trial, and the Supreme Court said, no, you can't use that kind of evidence against a president of the United States. And furthermore, when we talk about immunity,

there are various kinds of legal immunity that exists. There's qualified immunity, for qualified immunity for government officials for certain kinds of conduct. There's the immunity that members of Congress have, et cetera, et cetera. What immunity means is not immunity from getting convicted, from getting sentenced. It's way beyond that.

Immunity means immunity from being indicted in the first place, from having to go through a trial at all, from having to be subject to any kind of legal process whatsoever. Immunity is something you raised. As soon as someone sues you, you immediately move to dismiss it on the grounds of immunity. If you've got some kind of immunity defense for someone who's being sued at, like a public officials being sued, and you're able to raise qualified immunity as a defense.

You raise that as a threshold issue that No, I shouldn't be subject to any part of this litigation. I don't want to have to go through discovery. I don't want to have to go through a trial. I don't want to have to go through a sentencing argument. No,

I'm immune. And for merch On to have so little humility to say, hey, like I let in a lot of evidence that is very arguably presidential official acts, he's gonna raise this on appeal, Maybe I need to delay my sense, I maybe need to delay the sentencing here, and maybe I should just let the appeals process play out. If merch On, I think, had a shred of humility and a shred of non political hackery in him, that's what he would have done. Because Trump shouldn't be subject.

If Trump has a real immunity defense, he shouldn't be subject to the real harm that there's a real reputational harm to being labeled a convicted felon, even though he's not going to go to jail. He's not going to go to jail, but having that label convicted felon is a thing that is going to be harmful to him as far as interacting with world leaders. It's going to interfere with his doing his official duties as president. I think I think it's very relevant. It's why the media

wants it so bad. It's why the Democrats want it so bad. It's why merch On wants it so bad because he's a hack. So, in short, I think this sentencing of Trump is ridiculous. When we return, we'll talk about California wildfire stuff. Such a terrible story. We'll dig into it next. This is the John Jirbardi Show. I'm sure if you've listened to talk radio today you've probably wound up hearing this clip, but I'm gonna play it anyway. This is a clip from Los Angeles Fire Department Assistant

Chief Christine Larson. It's a little twenty five second clip. So this is a guess and not You know, I was felt bad about assuming that someone was a lesbian or gay, but then as I grew up, I was like, oh, well, people who are gay and lesbian like kind of don't mind letting people know that they're gay and lesbian very often, and they kind of make distinctive choices about how they

present themselves specifically to message that. So this is clearly a lesbian woman who is the Los Angeles Fire Department assistant chief. The actual fire chief is also a lesbian woman. And here's what she has to say about the idea of having a female firefighter who maybe might not be as strong as a male firefighter coming to save you.

And I think it's really illustrative of the problem that the left is going to face following the disastrous collapse of government resources here in California, that maybe such a disastrous collapse it could reshape the whole political dynamic here in California. Let's listen to what she has to say.

A fire. It's why we have have always had for firefighters certain baseline levels of physical preparedness. If you're a firefighter, you should probably be big and tough and strong. You should probably be able to do a bunch of push ups and pull ups and sit ups and lift a bunch of heavy weights. We should probably have a little

weight room in fire stations. This is, by the way, this is a constant pet peeve of mine with now, the nature of a firefighter's job is that you need them desperately when you do need them, and I do sort of wonder sometimes if firefighters have a lot of downtime though, when emergencies aren't happening. It always makes me laugh. Clovis Fire Department. If you guys want to come on the show and tell me I'm a moron, you have

every right to come on. It sort of drives me crazy when I see a whole fire truck going to like a grocery store like say Marty Vaughan's or whatever to get I guess groceries for the fire station, which I see all the time, And I'm like, why are you driving a whole fire truck to save Mart? This is clearly not an emergency. You're driving the whole fire

truck to a grocery store to get grocery. Really that there's no other like you don't have like an F one fifty or something at the station that you could drive to do this. But why are you doing this? Why? Why am I spending the taxpayer money for the gas for a fire truck for you guys to make a run to save Mart. It drives me insane regardless, I got completely off task here. Thank God we have all the firefighters we have who are doing heroic work fighting

these fires. And then a lot of the stories have read about the stuff they've been doing has been incredible and the problem has not been with firefighters at all. So anyway, if any of you firefighters want to come on the show and tell me I'm a jerk for you know, making fun of you guys, for you know, driving your whole truck to save Mark, feel free, all right. The problem is the firefighters don't have enough resources, or I guess because the leadership of these various fire departments

is run by lunatics like this. Yes, the idea of the left that people engaged in public services need to look like the people they serve. And this is part of the whole equity insanity. If the outcomes, whether it's of criminal law enforcement, the makeup of hiring in a certain industry, if the outcomes don't reflect the demographics of a given region, the assumption on the part of the left is always bigotry against some Historically, under is bigotry

against some group. It's always the assumption. If African Americans are being arrested, prosecuted, convicted, jailed at a higher rate than their share of the population in a given region, jurisdiction, state, whatever, the automatic assumption on the left is, it's because of racism in the system. If say, a fire department hires way more men than women for some reason. The default assumption is that it's because of sexism, and that people

human beings view themselves as sports fans. They view all of human life as rooting for teams, that women root for the women team and men root for the men team, and that for some reason, a woman stuck in a burning house would feel more comforted to have someone quote who looks like her coming into the building to save her. Let me ask all the women listening, what would make you feel better having this dumpy lesbian come to save you?

And yeah, I'm using those words deliberately. She does look dumpy, she looks kind of overweight. Having a dumpy lesbian come into your house to take you out of a fire, or having a big, tall, strong dude come into your house to rescue you from a burning fire. I think ninety nine percent of women are going to feel better about having someone who's big and tall and strong and frankly like it's because when you're in a burning when you're in an emergency situation, you don't give a crap

about this kind of race, ethnicity, gender demography, bs. You don't care about that stuff. It's an emergency, you need someone who is the most physically able to do the job.

And this is the this is where the left in California maybe, I mean, God knows are God knows that there are probably enough twenty five year old women voting in California who maybe will still refuse to accept this answer and will still continue to think in terms of like girl power and think that they're just being good people by embracing left wing viewpoints when it comes to every issue under the sun, whether it's equity and the

whole panoply of LGBT issues. I think a lot of women in their twenties will will continue to think that no matter what, they'll look at this wildfire situation, and even then they'll say, well, the obvious competence gaps on the part of liberals who have governed this state, who valued dei more than like competence, who valued the plight of the Delta smelt over having abundant water resources available, who prioritized the right of liberal nonprofit groups to sue

for sequel lawsuits rather than building the reservoirs that the people of California wanted to have built. Going all the way back to Proposition one, in twenty fourteen. I don't know that female twenty something voters, which constitute a big bulk of the voting population of California, I don't know

that they're going to change. I think it's going to be up to millennials and Gen xers who have homes who were affected by this are going to have to really shift their minds because basically, what the left has told us is, we would rather have you die with a weak female unable to drag your husband out of

a fire. We would rather let your let your husband eat, eat crap and die in a Literally, would rather have your husband eat crap and die with a lesbian firefighter unable to drag him out than to just prioritize big and strong guys, because because apparently the equity ratios have to be met, and people feel better about a firefighter who looks like them. Allegedly, apparently having firefighters with o is gonna make you feel better in the middle of

a conflagration. Look, if you've got a female firefighter who can meet whatever the physical standards are that you set for men, and you're not changing the physical standards, God bless her, go for it. That's great. If there are roles that women can serve at a lower standard of physical preparedness. Maybe it's responding to, you know, kind of ambulance esque medical calls or something like that. Okay, God

bless them flying helicopters, great, go for it. But I think this is honestly like this one clip of this female firefighter saying, if I can't lift your husband out of a fire, he shouldn't have been there in the first place. Well, obviously he shouldn't be there in the first place. It's a fire. The whole point of fires is that they're not supposed to happen. Your job is to get people out of situations that aren't supposed to happen,

even if the situation was entirely that man's fault. Maybe this man lit a candle and forgot to put it out and fell asleep on the couch. Now his house is on fire. He shouldn't be in that situation. You're supposed to drag his ass out anyway. And I wonder if this is gonna be the wake up call for liberals in California, who for decades now have just reflexively pulled the lever for Democrats time and time again. To see that. They would rather see you die and still

be woke then see this state run competently. That is what they want. They will not fix the wildfire problems because it upsets environmentalists. They will not have a competent law enforcement because it upsets George Soros. That's genuinely what's going on in this state. When we return, Marcus Streeman

doesn't take the race bait. Next on The John Girardi Show, what sports media fails time and again to recognize is that football players and football coaches, even black football players and football coaches, are far more conservative than I don't know, the general population. After Marcus Freeman, who is half African American and half Korean American, won the college football semi final last night, the ESPN reporter asked him this question, and Freeman as an awesome answer.