Dan Abrams responds to partisan critics on Megyn Kelly verdict debate

Watch the full debate below:

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(NewsNation) – After former President Donald Trump’s guilty verdict last week, my friend Megyn Kelly appeared on the show to react to it. It was a lively back and forth discussion.

Not surprisingly, her position was that the verdict was unfair, and she blamed the district attorney and the judge, among others.

Now, she and I agree that the case should never have been brought to court. But when it came to the broader question of whether Trump technically did something wrong or even illegal, our views were not aligned, and this led to a heated discussion that was picked up by several media outlets.

Fair; this is what happens when you argue on TV.

But then this weekend, several characters from the MAGA world recorded a short clip of what happened and declared that I had been “possessed,” “eviscerated,” and “educated,” with hundreds of people on the far right coming after me.

Dan Bongino said its 5.2 million followers on X that I am “dumb as a box of rocks”. The popular right-wing Twitter account called Catturd declared to his 2.5 million followers that “Dan Abrams just proved what an idiot he is in real time.”

Now, leaving aside what makes this particularly funny is that on Sunday I was also attacked by the left for saying on ABC that Judge Juan Merchan should have recused himself and that I thought the case should never have been brought to court.

But of course, they cut out part of me in the clip saying Megyn was wrong. But that’s the game.

And it also, of course, ignores the fact that, as much as I often felt like an idiot who wished I had the intellectual capacity of, say, Dan Bongino, I was right.

I understand that right and wrong don’t matter in the music video wars, but for those who do, this is for you.

First of all, we were discussing whether Trump did anything wrong, legally or even morally. And let’s leave aside that this was a personal expense, not a business one, even though he falsely considered it a legal expense.

Trump could have been charged, like Michael Cohen, with campaign finance violations in federal court. Megyn argued that if the payment could have been made outside the context of the campaign, then it would not be a campaign finance violation.

Except the law is actually the opposite of that.

O FEC says a prohibited personal expense in this context would be one “that would exist independently of the candidate’s campaign or responsibilities as a federal office holder.”

Therefore, the legal question is whether the payment would have been made “irrespective of the campaign”. This does not mean that the question is whether it can ever be asked outside the context of the campaign.

I called this the substantiality test. This means it is not a violation if it would have been committed regardless of the campaign. So would this be considered a violation by the FEC?

Well, in 2021, they found that the American media “knowingly and intentionally violated the law by making and consenting to prohibited in-kind corporate contributions with respect to payments related to Karen McDougal” — the other woman Trump and David Pecker they were trying to silence them by buying their stories.

So we know that the exact same type of payment was considered a violation.

And Pecker and also Cohen made it clear that the payment here was made to protect the campaign.

You may believe it has not been proven; You may believe, as the former Republican head of the FEC said, that these facts do not pass the test here to justify criminal prosecution.

And you may also believe, as I do, that this petty case should not have been brought against the former president.

But you can’t change the law to suit your theory. I’m not saying they should have filed this criminal charge like they did with Cohen. But on the question of whether Trump did something wrong here, it looks like the FEC has answered that for us.

So for some of you who asked me to respond, here it is. To the others who simply insulted me and turned me into a viral villain, thank you for the clicks.