24th April 2024
I am not an American lawyer, but here are some thoughts from an English litigation perspective.
Trump is adept at what he calls (or his ghost writer called) ‘the art of the deal’ – that is a transactional approach based on exploiting leverage.
Such an approach is not unhelpful in pre-trial shenanigans, where it is one party dealing with another party. Pre-trial litigation is often deal-making by another name. But when a dispute gets to court (and most Trump-related litigation does not get to a courtroom) then such bilateral game-playing becomes far less important. A third party – the judge (and sometimes jury) takes power. Trump’s blustering and bargaining is not well suited for this. Bullying will now not be enough.
And there will also be another thing he now cannot control: evidence. And this evidence will feed into the media mainstream, with the added credibility of being on oath. For somebody who is a deft manipulator of the media and his public image this los of information control will also be painful for him.
I have no idea if Trump will be convicted. I suspect it will be hard to get a conviction.
But he is now a fish out of water, at least for a while.
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Whilst I am no fan of Trump (to put it mildly) I can see a jury finding this an odd set of facts to base a finding of criminality against a former President who is running again. Seems to me they may likely think no one has been hurt by these acts, apart from the rather abstract question of whether its electoral fraud. The interesting question seems to me whether Trump gives evidence and the ramifications on not only the case, but his presidential campaign, on whether he does or does not do so. Either way it is however extraordinary that something like this does not automatically disqualify him as a candidate. I suspect history will (rightly) not be kind to the Republican Party for ever allowing itself to get into this position with this candidate.
Good observation. That is what happened in the E.Jean Carrol and Fraud cases. Trump tried the bluster, threat, bully approach and got nowhere (except reaffirming his base electoral support). What was interesting/shocking is just how bad his defence counsel was; didnt know trial procedure (his lawyer complained the formation elect for jury trial was complicated), experts witnesses who weren’t expert or confirmed the prosecution’s case. And of course Trump himself was a daily liability.
We will see if the scale of his losses so far and/or his fear of a criminal trial will change anything.
Trump has another defect – he lies constantly, and this makes it very difficult for his lawyers to represent him. Only yesterday the judge in the current criminal case called out his attorney (a well-known reputable trial lawyer) as lacking in credibility. Hard to come back from that one.
I completely agree with your observation that Trump is in a very uncomfortable place and and I suspect is having to face personal demons so far unknown to him.
There are defendants who will learn valuable lessons from experiences such as he faces however he is not one such.
The risk is that if unconvicted and re-elected he will not be able to resist his recent oft expressed biblical desire to “smite his enemies” with no trusted counsellor to capable of restraining him.
There are reasons to believe that he could achieve re-election unless the non-MAGA Republican become repelled by what learn of him as his reality tv mask is shredded by the evidence delivered in this and other cases. It seems to me that this remains possible regardless of conviction, acquittal or a hung jury.
Therefore it is possible that the case could operate like one of those old-fashioned English defamation cases where the victor is awarded a penny and no costs and handed back a reputation as a loser.
I am amused at Trump’s supporters accusing their opponents of “lawfare” when it has been Trump’s modi’s operandi for decades to try to avoid paying his subcontractors and suppliers. He had the money to go to law to bully those who could not afford to do so, but I believe only won one contested case worth so little it wasn’t worth collecting. He is truly the grifter’s grifter.
I am not a lawyer, but I am an American (for now). And I am also an unwilling student of Trump’s playbook. His “fish out of water” status will play into his victim-hood claims.
What would also work in his favour would be any custodial period for contempt. He seems to be willing the judge the put him in jail. Never underestimate him. He may well be convicted, because they hate him in New York. But I still think he’ll probably be elected.
I was wondering if you could expand on why you think it will be hard to get a conviction? Is it because of who he was as No 45? Jury tampering or bias?
No, the nature of the offence – requiring the prosecution to show that Trump was party to teh falsification of the business records and that it was done for the wrongful purpose of electoral interference.