Trump lawyer Todd Blanche did several things he wasn’t supposed to do on Monday — and he probably did it on purpose.
On the first day of real proceedings in Donald Trump’s criminal trial, the former president’s defense attorney attempted to sow reprehensible seeds in the minds of jurors. In her opening statement, Blanche portrayed adult film star Stormy Daniels as a liar who sought to “extort” her client and Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer, as a dishonest thug who took it upon himself to commit crimes which, by chance, profited. the Republican candidate.
More than half a dozen times, Blanche made comments that drew objections from prosecutors – objections that were sustained by Judge Juan Merchan, including the assertion that there is no nothing illegal about buying someone’s silence (it depends, for example, on whether someone is trying to escape the silence). campaign finance laws). Twice during Blanche’s opening remarks, Merchan called attorneys on both sides to approach the bench for an answer in response to something the defense attorney had said.
“It was odd,” commented MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin, “not only because there was one objection, but because of the number of objections compared to the brevity of Todd Blanche’s opening statement. .”
It was also a tactic. The claim that the nondisclosure agreements were legal — and another defense that Trump simply followed bad legal advice — had already been ruled inadmissible before the trial began; Blanche said it anyway. This led to multiple interruptions, Rubin noted, but at the same time, “he still planted seeds of doubt in the minds of the jurors.”
Writing for CNN, Norm Eisen, a former lawyer for the House Judiciary Committee, wrote that Monday’s spectacle was, in his view, highly unusual: “There were repeated objections that were sustained — probably the highest rate high number of held objections to an opening I saw. during my more than 30 years of practicing law.
“He knew what he was saying were reprehensible things,” Catherine A. Christian, a former prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, told MSNBC. “We objected to it, but you can’t ring the bell,” she noted – meaning you can’t make jurors forget what they heard, “and prosecutors won’t cannot appeal an acquittal.
But this strategy could also backfire. Katie Phang, another legal analyst at MSNBC, argued that any objections to Blanche’s opening statement could harm her credibility with jurors. “When Blanche went beyond what she was allowed, not only were the objections sustained…but it interrupted the flow,” Phang observed. “And that sends the message to the jury that Blanche is doing something wrong.”
It’s not clear that Blanche “doing something wrong” would hurt Trump’s chances in front of a jury; Those judging the state’s case against the former president may well conclude that Blanche is merely a pugnacious defender of her client’s interests. But Neil Katyal, a former acting U.S. attorney general, argued that if jurors paid attention to Blanche’s legal arguments, rather than her objectionable attacks on witnesses’ credibility, they would spot a number of errors.
On the one hand, Katyal said Monday evening, the idea that Michael Cohen would have decided to repay Daniels – and take out a home equity loan – on his own, without consulting Trump, is “completely implausible.” And if the money Trump paid Cohen was really for “legal fees,” not to evade campaign finance laws and buy an accuser’s silence, then jurors will soon find that There’s not much to support the defense theory.
“That’s going to be a problem,” Katyal said. “As a lawyer, the last thing you want to do is overpromise in your opening statement and tell the jury that the evidence is going to show something and in reality it doesn’t show it. That’s when you lose your credibility. After all, what witness would be willing to testify under oath that “these payments were for legitimate legal fees,” Katyal asked.
“It’s simply unthinkable,” he said — and it’s a propitious way to begin defending a man facing 34 charges. “This is a very bad way to start,” Katyal said, “which is why Trump has always been afraid not only of other trials, but of this one in particular.”
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