Judge in Trump hush money case sends cryptic letter via Facebook comment

In a brief letter sent Friday, New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan informed former President Donald Trump's lawyers about a potentially problematic Facebook comment from a person claiming to be the cousin of one of the jurors in his hush money trial.

The comment on the New York court's Facebook page made it seem as if one of the jurors had spoken to her cousin about the trial – a clear violation of Merchan's order not to discuss the case until the verdict was read.

“My cousin is a juror and says Trump will be convicted. Thank you guys for all your hard work!!!!” the comment said, according to the judge's letter.

Merchan said the post was sent a week ago, but he did not specify the exact date.

HuffPost was unable to locate the comment cited by the judge. However, a similar comment by someone with the same name was posted on May 29, the day before the jury returned its historic guilty verdict on 34 counts of first-degree falsification of business documents.

“My cousin is a juror in Trump's criminal trial and she says they will convict him tomorrow,” said the comment on an unrelated post from the New York State Unified Court System.

The commentator’s profile states that he is a “professional shit poster.”

In a Friday post apparently referring to the attention he was suddenly receiving, the commenter wrote, along with a laughing emoji, “Keep calm… I'm a professional shitposter.”

He continued: “Definition: In internet culture, shitposting or trashposting is the use of an online forum or social media site to post content that is of 'aggressive, ironic, and trollishly poor quality.' Shitposts are generally intentionally designed to derail discussions or elicit the greatest response with the least amount of effort. Sometimes they are even staged as part of a coordinated flame war to render a website unusable for its regular visitors.”

Trump's jury consisted of 12 New Yorkers and six alternates.

“Today, the Court became aware of a comment on the Unified Court System's public Facebook page, which I am bringing to your attention,” Merchan wrote to Trump's attorney Todd Blanche. The prosecutors' attorneys were also copied in the letter.

Merchan did not say whether he had reason to believe the comment actually came from a juror's relative or what, if any, he planned to do about it.

Trump's team could use the comment to argue that the jury's verdict should be thrown out. The verdict is currently scheduled for July 11.

Read the letter below.

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