Jonathan Turley inside court: Judge gives 'quaint instruction' to jury

Doug Mills/Pool via REUTERS

Judge Merchan is giving the standard instruction that they can reach inferences based on facts such as inferring that it rained from seeing people in raincoats. It is a rather quaint instruction after Merchan allowed the prosecutors to state as a "fact" that federal election violations occurred in this case. There is no such violation in this case, but Merchan did nothing to correct the erroneous impression. To carry forward the analogy, Steinglass was just yelling at the jury that there was a virtual hurricane on a perfectly sunny day but the judge remained entirely silent.

-- Jonathan Turley, constitutional law attorney and FNC contributor