Originally posted by: MaxFlavor
ABC News:
"Smith, who was appointed to the FEC by former President Bill Clinton, acknowledged in an X post on Monday that he did not testify because of a decision made by the defense. He added that he had intended to testify about complicated background knowledge necessary to understanding the case, rather than about the law.May 24, 2024"
Now for the rest of the story that ABC neglected to show. Munchies wouldn't allow the expert on election law to testify on his area of expertise. So there was no longer any point in calling him. Munchies allowed cohen the liar give his opinion on election law but wouldn't allow the expert on election law to testify.
Smith served as an FEC commissioner and chair between 2000 and 2005. The FEC is the U.S. agency dedicated to enforcing campaign finance laws. His testimony was slated to shed light on prosecutors’ allegations that Trump falsified business records, which is a misdemeanor that has already passed the statute of limitations, in order to cover up an election violation.
Judge Merchan has so restricted my testimony that defense has decided not to call me
"But the Federal Election Campaign Act is very complex. Even Antonin Scalia – a pretty smart guy, even you hate him – once said ‘this [campaign finance] law is so intricate that I can’t figure it out.’ Picture a jury in a product liability case trying to figure out if a complex machine was negligently designed, based only on a boilerplate recitation of the general definition of ‘negligence.’ They’d be lost without knowing technology & industry norms," he continued.
Smith wrote on social media that while the prosecution’s star witness, Michael Cohen, was allowed to go "on at length about whether and how his activity violated" the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA), he was barred from broadening the scope of his previously anticipated testimony, which "effectively" led to the jury getting "its instructions on FECA from Michael Cohen!"