Once again, Donald Trump’s ego is getting in the way of his legal defense.
Trump is well known in legal circles as the client from hell. He regularly makes unreasonable demands of his lawyers, refuses to follow their advice, blame them when things don’t go well.He is also famous for haven’t paid his bill.
That’s why the opportunity to represent a former president is not the prime legal talent you might expect, and why Mr. Trump often has a hard time getting it. decent expression. Nevertheless, unlike some of his other trials, the attorneys in the Stormy Daniels hush money case have, so far at least, done a reliable job and played the cards they were dealt predictably. ing.
Unfortunately, one of those cards is a client who forces them to do something they don’t want to do, like defer to prosecutors. Put Stormy Daniels on the stand.
as explosives As with her testimony, it is only marginally relevant to the case that prosecutors have to prove. As far as Ms. Daniels is concerned, all that prosecutors need to reveal is that Donald Trump paid her and then tried to cover it up by creating false business records for her. Whether Daniels and Trump ever had sex doesn’t really matter, at least legally.
Strategically, it would have been better to declare Daniels’ story true and ask the judge to remove her from the witness stand. She may not have succeeded, but at least Judge Marchand may have agreed to limit her testimony.
But Trump has maintained for years that her story was: It’s all a lie.Given the Rich backing Their numerous contacts are available, but it’s hard to sell. But President Trump is clearly not going to let that happen, attacking Daniels’ credibility and insisting his lawyers go all-in on claiming that Daniels made it all up.
The end result is that Ms. Daniels will tell her full story on Tuesday, and that the case against Mr. Trump began with a fairly dry docket, with the jury hearing from an accountant about the provocative procedures used by the Trump Organization. I heard the story. approve the checka jury heard about President Trump’s decision not to wear a condom when he cheated on his newly pregnant wife with a porn star in a case related to inducement of sexual intercourse.
This was so bad for the defense that Mr. Trump’s lawyers asked for a mistrial, which Judge Juan Melchán denied, but even the judge was a little perturbed by her testimony and said, “Maybe it’s better not to say it.” There were some good things.” And she agreed to give the jury limited instructions on how it could use Daniels’ testimony.
Ironically, if the defense somehow manages to convince the jury that Daniels is lying and making this whole story up, it will probably be more profitable for Trump than if she were telling the truth. It would also be a bad situation.
One of President Trump’s defenses is likely to be that he paid Daniels to keep his wife, Melania, from hearing about it, not because it was politically motivated. But that only makes sense if the story is true. If that story was a lie, and he didn’t care about political repercussions, then how could this crazy woman he barely knew, instead of arranging a secret payment of $130,000, completely You would think he would have told Melania how he was made up. A false story that tries to shake him off.
Of course, President Trump also ignores the advice of his lawyers regarding gag orders and acts openly in court. This has already made the job of prosecutors difficult, as they are not revealing until the last moment who the next witness will be due to concerns about President Trump’s actions.
On Tuesday, Judge Marchan said: admonished He is Trump’s lawyer and is already a lawyer for his conduct in court. I was arrested 10 times for contempt.. Pro tip: If the judge says, “The last thing I want to do is put you in jail,” the next thing the judge is going to do is put you in jail.
But the Big Kahuna, the reversal of a customer’s wrong decision, is coming up in about three weeks, and Donald Trump will decide whether to testify in his own defense. A competent defense lawyer would never dream of having Mr. Trump voluntarily take the stand, but since this is entirely the defendant’s decision, there is a good chance that Mr. Trump will ignore his lawyer’s advice. It is in. He has already stepped into it by publicly claiming that a gag order prevents him from testifying, with a judge in open court directing him to: it’s not.For now, Trump claims he probably will. take a stand.
Donald Trump once said, “Your intuition can tell you more than anyone else’s brain can tell you.” Maybe that works in politics, but not in the courts. Maybe he should take some antacids and start listening to his lawyer instead.
chris tuax He is a Republican and an appellate lawyer.
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