No. of Recommendations: 6
A smart lawyer knows which is which. Trump doesn’t, and his lawyers are apparently cowed into doing what he wants instead of what’s right.
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If Trump is convicted in this case, part of the satisfaction to be enjoyed will be the knowledge that he had a direct hand in his own undoing by essentially trying to micromanage his lawyers like he micromanages everything else in life. Earlier in the week, someone interviewed about the events in court mentioned that Trump had a saying about his strategy for running his businesses. It was something to the effect of "Hire very smart people then second guess everything they do" or words to that effect. The irony (and humor) in all of this is that Trump is not only proving how flawed this strategy is via his micromanagement (and likely constant heckling behind the scenes) of his lawyers but he is also proving that he ISN'T hiring smart people. No respectable, qualified lawyer would voluntarily accept Trump as a client for any civil or criminal case.
As a follow-up, it is worth mentioning the aide from The Trump Organization who testified on Thursday regarding Trump's micromanagement of routine expenses was cross-examined by defense counsel on May 10 and seemed to contradict about thirty percent of her prior answers from May 9. The common thread behind her apparent changes in testimony was that in hindsight, her May 9 testimony included answers about Trump's state of mind about the campaign that were her OPINION of what he was likely thinking rather than questions of whether she had direct knowledge of his opinion and state of mind. When cross-examined May 10, the questions seemed to have similar wordings but she was less committed in her answers.
The prosecution did not follow up with questions but it wasn't clear if they a) didn't detect the change in nuance in her answers, b) decided to hold questions until after introducing other testimony as they build their case or c) figured she did enough damage where they wanted it to Trump's case and didn't want to cloud that prior impression upon the jury. Will this aide wind up being yet another MAGA (Making Aides Get Attorneys) victim requiring MORE legal counsel to escape perjury charges? Stay tuned.
WTH
