By Saqib Saleem Qureshi
Donald Trump may be stuck in a Manhattan courtroom, but he knows his fave legal analysts
NEW YORK (SCN) — If there are bragging rights associated with Donald Trump praising your legal acumen when he speaks after a day’s testimony at his criminal trial, Fox News analyst Andy McCarthy has already been cited at least a dozen times.
The former president and current presidential candidate has routinely stepped to a metal barricade outside the courtroom in lower Manhattan to face cameras and get the last word on the day’s proceedings. As the trial has wound down, his speeches — he rarely acknowledges shouted questions — more frequently consist of reading the words of friendly commentators from a sheaf of papers.
McCarthy, quoted by the former president three separate times on May 13, is a “great analyst,” Trump said. Some favorites get personal praise: Byron York is “a great person, great reporter.” Alan Dershowitz is similarly “a great person,” Trump said. Occasionally, someone from CNN slips in. MSNBC gets the silent treatment.
For television, New York’s ban on cameras in the courtroom means plenty of airtime for legal analysts. It evokes the high point of the form three decades ago, when the O.J. Simpson murder trial made household names of the likes of Jeffrey Toobin, Nancy Grace and Greta Van Susteren. Fox’s Jarrett, who worked at Court TV in the 1990s, straddles the eras.
TRUMP CHOOSES HIS FOCUS
According to the analysis on this case have drawn much of Trump’s attention. Turley made 47 appearances to talk about the trial on Fox’s weekday programs from the start of the trial through May 15, with McCarthy logging 35, according to the liberal watchdog Media Matters.
McCarthy once prosecuted terrorism cases in the U.S. attorney’s office in New York’s Southern District and represented Rudolph Giuliani. Turley is a professor at George Washington University’s law school and founded the Project for Older Prisoners, which helps seek release of geriatric prison inmates.
Writing about the trial in the National Review, McCarthy said that “Trump ought to be acquitted for the simplest of reasons: Prosecutors can’t prove their case.” He criticized prosecution witness and former Trump attorney Michael Cohen on the air, saying Cohen’s dishonesty and bias against Trump will be problems he has to overcome with the jur