Yet Another Violation of Trump's Constitutional Rights

Why does it matter that Pecker wasn’t involved in that decision? Because the decision to pay the fine was evidence used against Trump at his criminal trial. That, in practical effect, made AMI a witness against Trump. The prosecution was effectively using Pecker to admit, on behalf of AMI, that AMI broke the law. But Pecker can’t be cross-examined about something he didn’t do. Neither AMI as an entity, nor its board, was called as a witness, so Trump was denied the right to cross-examine AMI about why it paid the $180,000 fine.

That’s a violation of Trump’s rights under the Sixth Amendment’s confrontation clause. Since Crawford v. Washington (2004), the Supreme Court has cracked down on the use of out-of-court statements by people who aren’t called as witnesses, because the Constitution guarantees the right of the accused in every criminal case “to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” That has specifically curtailed the use by prosecutors of guilty pleas as evidence unless they call the person who pled guilty — ending the prior prosecutors’ trick of obtaining such pleas, deferring sentencing, and then declining to grant immunity so that the guilty-pleading defendant would assert a Fifth Amendment right of self-incrimination against testifying. Now, the cost of that maneuver is to lose the plea as evidence. Moreover, Crawford has particular significance when it’s a corporation that pleads guilty or reaches a settlement, because corporations can’t really be cross-examined unless there is an authorized corporate representative on the stand or someone who can testify about why they made the decision to plead guilty — and that person may not have had any personal knowledge of the underlying crime.