A MSNBC legal analyst warned his fellow liberals on Thursday not to be too fast to celebrate the news of a Manhattan jury finding former President Trump guilty in his hush money trial.
“Don’t pop our champagne corks yet because Trump’s going to run against the system and our job as lawyers is to make sure that people understand how that system works and how it was – justice was done today,” former principal deputy solicitor general of the United States Neal Katyal said.
Trump was found guilty by a jury in New York City on all 34 felony charges of falsifying business records in his history-making case in which a former or current president for the first time was tried in court.
NY V TRUMP: JURY REACHES A VERDICT IN FORMER PRESIDENT’S HISTORIC CRIMINAL TRIAL
Katyal, who is an MSNBC legal analyst, argued that the fact that the trial had to be decided “beyond a reasonable doubt” among all 12 jurors was an astounding event. “One juror saying Trump didn’t do it was enough for him not to be convicted.”
“It’s kind of like failing kindergarten,” Katyal suggested. “You’ve got to kind of try to fail a jury trial if you are a defendant. You have got everything going for you, and yet Trump managed to do that.”
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Earlier, MSNBC host Chris Hayes praised “the process itself as a monumental achievement, whatever happened today, the process was an achievement.” He later added, “whatever happened today in that outcome with the jury, that process worked.”
Katyal praised Hayes’ comment.
“I think this shows that the system works, but I suspect Trump’s next move will be, as it always is, to denigrate the system, to attack the institutions, to attack the prosecution, to attack the jury system,” he said.
Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.