May22

electoral-vote.com

Dem 51

   

GOP 49

Trump Legal News: The Trial (Day 20)

If you don't like reading items about Donald Trump, well, this is not your day. Here are the main storylines from the final day of testimony in his criminal fraud trial:

• The Defense Rests: As expected, the defense concluded its case after finishing with its second witness, Robert Costello (the first, Daniel Sitko, appeared so briefly that he isn't even mentioned in most news stories).
  
  Anyhow, this means two things. First, Donald Trump obviously did not testify on his own behalf. Remember that the next time he pretends like he wants to testify and he's going to testify. After all, the lawyers work for him, and if he insists on taking the stand, he wins.
  
  Second, Costello is thus the defense's main witness, and he wasn't a very good one, for a number of reasons. By all accounts, he wasn't very credible. Also, he was ultimately speaking to a relatively trivial element of the overall case. And, as The New York Times' Maggie Haberman pointed out, the fact that Costello caused the courtroom to be cleared because he couldn't act like an adult was not a good look for Team Trump. Taken in total, Trump's defense team ended on a sour note, and likely left a bad taste in jurors' mouths. They almost certainly would have been better off resting when the prosecution did, and mounting no defense at all.
  
  
• Jury Instructions: Once the testimony was complete, then it was time for the jury to go home for the day, and for Judge Juan Merchan and the lawyers to discuss the jury instructions. Naturally, both sides want to squeeze a bunch of stuff in there that would steer the jury in their particular direction. However, Team Trump was considerably more aggressive about this, and managed to aggravate Merchan yet again. In particular, the defense has tried over and over to sneak in an argument that Trump was effectively acting on advice of counsel, and so can't be blamed if illegal stuff happened. Merchan has said "no" multiple times, and he refused to include a jury instruction along those lines, telling Trump lawyer Emil Bove: "My answer hasn't changed, and honestly I find it a little disingenuous for you to make this argument again."
  
  
• Trump Declares Victory: Yesterday, Trump told reporters that "We have a phenomenal case. We've won the case by any standard; any other judge would have thrown this case, any other judge would have thrown this case out." Recall that he showed this same sort of overconfidence before losing the civil fraud trial, the first E. Jean Carroll case, the second E. Jean Carroll case, etc., so consider what he's really communicating here.
  
  
• Trump the Bigot: Trump hates to be held to account by anyone, but he particularly hates it when the person holding him to account is not a male of European descent. And yesterday, he finally unleashed the racist anger that has undoubtedly been building in him for weeks and weeks, declaring: "The judge hates Donald Trump. Just take a look. Take a look at him. Take a look at where he comes from. He can't stand Donald Trump. He's doing everything in his power." "Where he comes from," of course, is Colombia. Also note that Trump is increasingly referring to himself in the third-person, like a monarch. What's next? "We are not amused?"
  
  
• Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Who's the Biggest A**-Kisser of All?: Aspirational Trumpublicans are running out of time to score brownie points with cheap stunts. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), who desperately wants to be Trump's running mate, filed an ethics complaint against Merchan yesterday, because she claims his Democratic strategist daughter would benefit from a finding of "guilty." This is the fifth time Stefanik has tried this stunt against various judges who she thinks were mean to Trump; the previous four were all dismissed.
  
  Meanwhile, Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) didn't think of a way to abuse the judicial process to score points with Trump, but he did join the throngs of GOP officeholders who are making the pilgrimage to New York. And in Nehls' remarks to reporters, he repeated the various talking points about unfair, election interference, conspiracy, blah blah, and then said there are only two people who draw huge crowds of rabid followers to their events: Trump and the Pope. Why don't these Trumpers just get on with it, and officially proclaim the Evangelical Apostolic Prosperity Gospel Church of Trump, helmed by Supreme Pontiff Donald I? That would REALLY boost fundraising.

As expected, the jury won't hear closing statements until Tuesday of next week. Those are going to take one day, and then the jurors will have the case. So, we will presumably have a resolution by the end of next week, but not too much more news on this front this week. (Z)