No. of Recommendations: 5
I agree. I find it bizarre that the defense focused so much time and energy on Daniels. Also, by focusing on her credibility, they have opened it up that prosecutors can ask Donald Trump similar questions about their relationship should he ever testify. Now, if he testifies, Trump can be asked point blank under oath if he ever had a relationship with Daniels because like you said, Trump's attorneys opened up those types of questions when they attacked Daniels credibility.
If like you mentioned, defense lawyers simply acknowledged something happened between Trump and Daniels then those types of questions would never have been allowed to be asked of Trump. Now his defense attorneys just opened up a huge minefield for Trump to walk through should he ever testify. It greatly increases the chances Trump perjures himself on the stand, but it also greatly increases the chance that he destroys his credibility with the jury as well.
Think about it. Let's say Trump really never did have any sort of relationship with Daniels. He is telling the 100% truth and she is 100% lying. Now if Trump testifies, and the prosecutors cannot catch him in a lie, they can still attack his credibility by asking him questions like "Why did you give Ms. Daniels $130,000 if she is lying?", "Are you in the habit of giving large sums of money to any horsefaced woman who comes forward ready to tells lies about relationships with you?" There is simply no way for him to answer those questions without looking non-credible to the jury. Questions like those would never have been allowed if the defense had never made Daniels credibility an issue, but they did so now they would come up.
By making it about Daniels' credibility, they are also making it about Trump's credibility on an issue he has no way of looking remotely credible on.
Put a different way, I am pretty sure that even some of Trump's most devoted cultists probably think he had an affair with Daniels. They do not care and they are ok with him lying about it, but they think he probaby did it. So if Trump has no credibility on whether he had a relationship with Daniels, why would the jury give him any credibility on his actions regarding the business records surrounding the payment?
It was a huge self-inflicted error from a legal point of view.
