Trump may be his own worst enemy
As N.Y. criminal trial nears, former president’s behavior in court could determine outcome
Donald Trump was minutes away from being grilled under oath by the New York attorney general and he was itching to talk. To fend off the state’s fraud investigation, the former president insisted on answering every question, believing he alone knew what to say.
But his lawyer at the time, Ronald P. Fischetti, directed Trump to keep quiet.
He instructed the former president to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during the 2022 deposition with the attorney general, Letitia James, according to two people with knowledge of the discussion. Fischetti warned Trump he was risking perjury charges, and he would come to regret it.
Trump relented, but his legal problems were only just beginning. Over the past year, he was indicted four times and faced three civil trials. And as the former president’s first criminal trial approaches March 25, it has become clear — as it was to Fischetti — the single person who poses the greatest danger to Trump may just be Trump.
In two of the recent civil trials, the former president directed his lawyers to object at inopportune moments, ranted about the judges and even stormed out of the courtroom. He lost both trials and was ordered to pay more than half a billion dollars combined.
Now, a new team of lawyers is preparing to defend him in Manhattan, where prosecutors have accused Trump of covering up a potential sex scandal that could have swayed the outcome of the 2016 election. It is not only Trump’s first criminal trial, but the first time any former president has faced prosecution. And how the legal team corrals Trump — or fails to — could determine whether he is also the first former president to be convicted.
“I would expect Trump to try to act up,” said Ty Cobb, a veteran lawyer who worked in the White House Counsel’s Office during the Trump administration and who has since been critical of the former president. He added: “He needs to be aggressively muzzled by the lawyers if he is to avoid offending the jury.”
Trump faces steep odds in his first criminal case, which was brought by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg. Trump’s belligerent courtroom antics might not resonate with a jury in Manhattan, where only about 12% of voters supported him in the 2020 election. And Bragg’s evidence is extensive, featuring documents, tape recordings and testimony from Trump’s onetime confidants.
To avoid conviction, his defense team, led by Todd Blanche and Susan R. Necheles, will have to be stellar. They will most likely argue the evidence does not directly implicate Trump and that the witnesses are liars.
Like Fischetti, who recently died, Blanche and Necheles are experienced criminal lawyers. But they will have to strike a tricky balance: appeasing their powerful and impulsive client without losing the jury or angering the judge, Juan M. Merchan.
For now, Trump’s behavior at hearings in his criminal cases has differed markedly from the civil trials: There have been no outbursts and less posturing. On Friday, while in a Florida courtroom for one of his federal criminal cases, Trump appeared almost perky as he smiled and joked with Blanche, who represents him in three of the four pending criminal trials. When Trump was president, he appointed the judge overseeing that case.
A spokesman for Trump’s campaign, Steven Cheung, said Trump “and his legal team will continue to fight the Democrat-led witch hunts in the courts and at the ballot box,” an apparent reference to Bragg and James being Democrats.