The short answer is ‘not yet’ and also that we don’t think it is very likely to lead to strong enough evidence to cause a mistrial. But let’s start with what we do know. We know that Judge Merchan sent a letter to the parties in Trump’s New York City case:
Here is the letter about the Facebook comment: https://t.co/ymVH26uEc0
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) June 7, 2024
The gist of the letter is that someone posted the following on Facebook, after jury deliberations had begun and before the verdict was announced:
My cousin is a juror and says Trump is getting convicted [emoji] Thank you folks for all your hard work!!!!
There's literally no more to the letter than just telling them what was posted and telling them that it was posted on the New York judiciary's Facebook page, on a post that had nothing to do with the Trump case.
With help from our own ‘Grateful Calvin,’ we have been able to track down the specific post that this comment was attached to, and it appears that the comment has disappeared. And we are saying only that: We don’t know if it was deleted by the user or by Facebook or by someone else. Furthermore, we can’t locate the original commenter’s profile at this time.
We also don’t know anything more than ‘a person wrote this comment on Facebook.’ Is this person really a cousin of a juror? If he was, did that cousin really say that?
Certainly, the poster is what most people would call a troll:
The cut off text reads:
Their profile photo is of their account being restricted by Facebook.
Their one image is the post on the right.
The screenshots they provide show that he called himself a ‘professional s—tposter’ (curse word censored). Furthermore, today he apparently posted this: ‘Take it easy … I’m a professional s—tposter’ (more censoring). That would appear to be in response to his sudden internet fame, though we can't be 100% sure on this point.
And in avoidance of any confusion, this just posted on said sh*tposter’s FB account: pic.twitter.com/JNeaIi0AVR
— Katie Phang (@KatiePhang) June 7, 2024
Recommended
So, we could imagine a few scenarios.
The first is that 'Mr. Anderson' is full of it. He thought it would be funny to pretend he has insider knowledge but then today, well … stuff got real. He just realized that he might have caused a problem in a case involving a presidential candidate. So, he is trying to tell us he was full of it.
Please note that this scenario works whether or not Anderson actually wanted a conviction or not. Even if he wanted Trump to be acquitted, he might have thought it was funny to say he was definitely going to be convicted.
The second scenario is that the writer is full of it, but he actually truly wanted to see Trump acquitted. So he wrote this hoping to throw a monkey wrench in the case, and maybe even get a mistrial, if Trump is convicted (as he eventually was).
The third possibility is that he was telling the truth, and is trying after the fact to do some clean up.
If there is a fourth possibility, it doesn’t occur to us right now. And the thing to get is that we don’t think anyone in Trump’s case knows what the truth is, yet. We don’t even know if Judge Merchan thinks the statement is credible. Merchan is pretty much obliged to share it whether he thinks there is cause to think that this will have any effect or not.
But there are ways to try to find out what the truth is. Either side could seek information from Facebook that could, potentially, even locate the exact computer that this writer was using when he or she wrote the original comment. If they determine that no one who had access to the computer had contact with the jury, that would seemingly prove Mr. Anderson was full of it. But if it turns out that one of the people who had access to the computer was also the cousin of a juror, then the investigation gets closer to verifying the original claim—but it still hasn’t proven it just yet.
It certainly doesn’t get us to an automatic mistrial, right now. Anyone can write anything on the Internet and it doesn’t automatically mean it is true. If this author wrote ‘I killed John F. Kennedy. I was on the grassy knoll’ that wouldn’t be terribly credible to most people who know us, given that we were born about nine years after that assassination.
(Little do they know about our official Twitchy Time MachineTM).
Jokes aside, all of that is assuming a relatively straightforward process of locating Mr. Anderson. It is possible that Anderson was masking where and what computer he was posting from. And, frankly, if he was smart, he would lawyer up if anyone came asking about the post—and if he does, it might be very difficult to verify any conversation. This behavior could disrupt this case and consequently it could, potentially, be seen as more or less obstruction of justice, at least if he was full of it when he posted. If Mr. Anderson is located (who knows if it is his real name) and he knows a juror, that juror could be interviewed, but what if Mr. Anderson lawyers up and the juror doesn’t verify Anderson’s claims, that would leave the issue pretty dead in the water.
In short, we tend to think this is just a guy who was full of it, who thought it would be funny to post it regardless of where his sympathies lie (and we’re just assuming it’s a man, though we obviously could be wrong). But if we were Mr. Trump’s lawyer, we would say to him ‘rather than guess, let’s find out, Mr. Trump’ and see if we can nail down the truth behind this post. With an ordinary client, with ordinary financial means, we might ask the client if it is really worth spending the money to investigate the matter, but we think Trump’s risk/reward calculus is very different from that of most persons.
Furthermore, we wouldn’t be surprised if the NYPD and maybe even the FBI are looking into the matter.
NEW: It looks increasingly likely to be a hoax/troll, but Justice Merchan nevertheless informed Trump/Bragg about a Facebook poster who claimed to have insight into Trump jury deliberations while they were ongoing.
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) June 7, 2024
w/ @eorden https://t.co/Xltf1arzEr
How silly of him to notify the parties. He's clearly not a very online person (to his credit!). Therefore, he doesn't know that that happens ALL the time. Random weirdos claiming "I know someone and have intel" for attention.
— A.J. Delgado (@AJDelgado13) June 7, 2024
Actually, Merchan really didn’t have a choice. While we don’t think the New York justice system has to search the entire Internet for claims of jury misconduct, when it is posted on their Facebook page—especially when posted before the verdict came in—they have a duty to inform the parties.
And yes, there was a lot of bad analysis and some colorful comments.
Two different screenshots have emerged showing Michael Anderson, the cousin of a juror in Trump’s trial, bragging about his cousin stating that Trump would be convicted before the verdict was revealed. pic.twitter.com/bu8bcaHRVg
— ZNO 🇺🇸 (@therealZNO) June 7, 2024
Just because a dude says he is the cousin of a juror, doesn’t mean he actually is one. It’s the same way that we would say that just because Rachel Levine says he is a woman, doesn’t mean he is one.
(We only call him Rachel because we understand that to be his legal name.)
New York Supreme Court notified Merchan that the cousin of a juror (Michael Anderson) in Trump’s trial posted the verdict on FB a day BEFORE the verdict was given!!
— SaltyGoat (@SaltyGoat17) June 7, 2024
Who thinks we get a mistrial?!?😎👇🏻 pic.twitter.com/tXtXCAuOy2
Dude, do you always believe everything you read on the Internet? We would take Abraham Lincoln’s advice on this:
Truly, our most visionary president, anticipating both that the Internet would exist and that there would be a lot of bull on it.
The government trying to scrub Michael Anderson's social media right now: pic.twitter.com/YwqhQG2Ttf
— NotKennyRogers (@NotKennyRogers) June 7, 2024
Heh.
A day before the verdict was officially announced in Trump's trial, Michael Anderson, a juror's cousin, posted the verdict on Facebook.
— 🔥Desiree🔥 (@DesireeAmerica4) June 7, 2024
Who thinks this is a mistrial?🙋🏼♀️ pic.twitter.com/i0zxKUlYwy
Sigh.
Wow !! This is BIG TROUBLE pic.twitter.com/dAzXpmoZDf
— Greta Van Susteren (@greta) June 7, 2024
We think her comment is ambiguous enough to be true. It is either big trouble for the case if it starts to look like he wasn’t full of it. But if he was full of it, then whoever this guy actually is, is likely to be in big trouble.
Anderson says to "take it easy" because he is just a "professional sh*tposter." pic.twitter.com/aJDhaYqcPZ
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) June 7, 2024
The cut off text reads:
The Facebook profile believed to be the man who made the comment about having inside information on the Trump trial, says he is ‘Transabled & a professional sh*t poster.’
He also uploaded a photo on June 1 of rock star GG Allin wearing a dress and a dog collar while smoking a cigarette.
Multiple screenshots are going around of Anderson saying he had inside information on the case because his ‘cousin is a juror.’
The Trump legal team is currently investigating the matter.
"Who is your cousin, Michael Anderson?"
— MirCat (@TRMirCat) June 7, 2024
"I don't have a cousin. My parents were only children."
"I don't care how old they were when they had you. Who is your cousin?" pic.twitter.com/PwQPX8sj7W
Yes, more than a few people connected ‘Mr. Anderson’ to Neo’s original name in the Matrix.
That Michael Anderson guy who claims to be a cousin of a juror is quite clearly a troll. There may have been no leak after all. https://t.co/KDg6kpEPcy
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) June 7, 2024
🚨🚨🚨🚨BREAKING: I have tracked down Michael Anderson! This is a shocking development. Judge Merchant must now exonerate Trump! https://t.co/Vz6ZQPyNTb pic.twitter.com/4e8QA0ezjI
— Burt Macklin (@BurtMaclin_FBI) June 7, 2024
Okay, that is pretty funny. And it gets at an important truth. For all we know, Donald Trump might have posted the comment himself as an ‘insurance policy’ in case he is convicted. Mind you, we don’t think that is likely, but based on what we verifiably know, it is possible. That's why the courts can't just treat a comment on the internet as gospel. At best, it can only be the first step in an investigation.
Everyone on social media searching for Michael Anderson Cousin Juror pic.twitter.com/6k093IR9Tb
— Billy Rhodes 🇺🇸 (@Bill_Rhodes54) June 7, 2024
Yeah, the juror misconduct thing is appalling but what’s going to happen? The court is going to disregard it because no one can prove this Michael Anderson person had a cousin on the jury who told him that. The verdict is a travesty. The least surprising thing in the universe… pic.twitter.com/OLTyYmEqg1
— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) June 8, 2024
The cut off text reads:
The least surprising thing in the universe would be juror misconduct. The most surprising thing in the universe would be for this case to be mistrialed over misconduct. Sorry to pee in your cornflakes. This isn’t how the garbage going to get overturned. We’re gonna have to wait for the appeal.
We think a more serious issue could emerge if they could create a plausible connection between an actual juror and the person who wrote this. But short of that we think he is probably right.
And we will note that Anderson gets no points for being right about the verdict. The safe money was on conviction, especially after the jury was given those terrible instructions. There are lots of good reasons to overturn the conviction, not the least of which being Judge Merchan’s unlawful donations to help Biden and hurt Trump in the 2020 election. But right now, this Facebook post isn’t a very strong horse.
Finally:
😂
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) June 7, 2024
That tracks. Lol.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member