Panicking Trump Hilariously Melts Down as Hush-Money Jury Convenes

Donald Trump is looking increasingly nervous as his hush-money trial comes to a close.

The former president took to Truth Social late Tuesday to torch not only the judge who oversaw the case but also his own attorneys, who he seemed to suggest did not offer him the legal defense he wanted.

“THE GREATEST CASE I’VE EVER SEEN FOR RELIANCE ON COUNSEL, AND JUDGE MERCHAN WILL NOT, FOR WHATEVER REASON, LET ME USE THAT AS A DEFENSE IN THIS RIGGED TRIAL. ANOTHER TERM, ADVICE OF COUNSEL DEFENSE!” Trump wrote.

An advice of counsel defense negates the element of criminal fraud when the advice stems from “reasonable reliance” on the advice of a person’s legal counsel. Openly lambasting his own defense suggests there’s a bit more panic going on behind the scenes than Trump’s letting on—but it’s not as if his defense strategy should have come as a surprise to him.

Trump’s legal team indicated in March that they would not invoke an advice-of-counsel defense. Instead, they wanted to include evidence that centered around the lawyers in Trump’s decision to dole out hush-money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels—a strategy that Judge Juan Merchan described as a “presence of counsel” defense and that he ultimately deemed would be too confusing for the jury to navigate.

But Trump’s meltdown persisted well into Wednesday morning. In separate posts, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee lambasted his former fixer Michael Cohen, misinterpreted closing arguments in the courtroom as a “5 HOUR FILIBUSTER” put on by the “SOROS BACKED D.A.’s OFFICE,” and mocked Robert De Niro as a small man whose artistry had gone “WAY DOWN IN VALUE,” after the actor paid a visit outside of the New York courthouse hosting Trump’s trial.

But before long, Trump was back to fixating on the legal defense that could have been.

“KANGAROO COURT! A CORRUPT AND CONFLICTED JUDGE. RELIANCE ON COUNSEL (ADVISE OF COUNSEL) NOT ALLOWED BY MERCHAN, A FIRST. HIS RULINGS, ON A CASE THAT SHOULD, ACCORDING TO ALL LEGAL SCHOLARS AND EXPERTS, NEVER HAVE BEEN BROUGHT, HAVE MADE THIS A BIDEN PUSHED WITCH HUNT. THERE WAS NO CRIME, EXCEPT FOR THE BUM THAT GOT CAUGHT STEALING FROM ME! IN GOD WE TRUST!”

“THE D.A.’s OFFICE WAS ALLOWED TO GO ON WITH 5 HOURS OF BULL.…  YESTERDAY” Trump wrote, adding in another post, “DEFENSE OF COUNSEL DEFENSE!”

At his hush-money trial on Tuesday, Donald Trump kept some crib notes around to help him remember some key points.

Those key points included, “This case should be dismissed by the judge but it’s totally corrupt,” written in Trump’s favorite black marker on a yellow sticky note. When news photographers were briefly allowed into the courtroom before proceedings started Tuesday, one of them snapped a picture of the note.

It’s not the first time he’s carried notes during an important event. According to the Associated Press, he carried a handwritten note that said, “I want no quid pro quo” when he spoke outside of his first impeachment hearing. In 2019 at the White House, he carried notes reading, “They want to impeach over acts that they did,” and “I’m going to keep working for the American people,” while speaking about infrastructure.

But why would he need a reminder of his own opinion? It seems Trump might have wanted the public and reporters to see the note and report on it. It also gets awfully close to violating his gag order in the trial, which prohibits the former president from attacking court staff, jurors, the prosecution, witnesses, and their families. He’s already been fined $10,000 for 10 violations and has been warned by Judge Juan Merchan that he could go to jail if does it again.

Or is it cognitive decline? Just last week, Trump was bragging at his Bronx rally about successfully putting on his pants and, less than two weeks ago, seemed to freeze while giving a speech at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention.

In any case, Trump may not have to spend much time in the “icebox” Manhattan courtroom for much longer, as closing arguments are winding down in his trial over payments made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to cover up their affair before the 2016 election. He faces 34 felony charges for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime, and has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.

Judge Aileen Cannon may have slapped down a request to gag Donald Trump, but her indefinite delays on the trial could very likely put a deadline on her own involvement in the case entirely.

On Tuesday, Cannon rejected special counsel Jack Smith’s gag order request in Trump’s classified documents trial on the basis that the filing wasn’t polite enough, telling the federal prosecutor that he did not offer Trump’s legal team enough time to discuss (and ultimately reject) the request. But time is of the essence in Trump’s criminal trials—especially with a loose-lipped defendant who keeps haranguing federal agencies and a Trump-appointed judge who is slow-walking the case to an early grave.

Some legal experts have predicted that it’s that exact combination that will push the trial until after November and into a possibility where Trump could potentially pardon himself, avoiding any consequences for snagging the sensitive documents. But others believe that the constant delays could lead to another alternative: Cannon’s removal from the trial.

Cannon filed her decision Tuesday without prejudice, meaning that Smith can refile his request to gag the former president. If he does, Cannon would be forced to make a definitive ruling, explained MSNBC legal analyst Jordan Rubin.

Smith could then appeal that ruling—and “possibly [build] a case to try and get a new judge to preside,” Rubin wrote.

Legal scholar Matthew Seligman agreed that a renewed motion would put Cannon’s fate squarely in her own hands.If she doesn’t approve the renewed motion—or if she sits on it indefinitely—Smith could “potentially” go to the Eleventh Circuit and ask them to step in, Seligman told The New Republic’s Greg Sargent. Or if she denies it outright, there is an “overwhelming likelihood” that Smith will appeal to the Eleventh Circuit, during which he could ask for her removal.

“The obvious concern here is that Trump’s rhetoric is going to inspire violence against federal law enforcement officers, and this is something that can’t wait,” Seligman said, noting that the threat isn’t “purely hypothetical.”

In April, a former Navy submarine technician from North Carolina, Ervin Lee Bolling, rammed his SUV into the FBI’s Atlanta headquarters. His social media history revealed him to be an individual enmeshed in QAnon conspiracy theories—a political conspiracy that paints Trump as a messiah—making posts in support of Trump’s “Stop the Steal” election interference campaign, and said that he was “looking for a good militia to join” after a federal stimulus bill passed in December 2020.

But Trump’s recent messaging could do even more damage, Seligman warned. Over the weekend, Trump accused the Biden administration of authorizing the FBI to shoot him during its search and seizure of Mar-a-Lago—a claim that was, in actuality, a wild misread of a standard policy statement regarding the agency’s use of deadly force.

The Biden administration still won’t change its policy toward Israel, despite overwhelming photo evidence of gruesome casualties in Israel’s latest attacks on Rafah in Gaza.

That was the message Tuesday from National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby at a press conference.

“The Israelis have said this is a tragic mistake,” Kirby told reporters when asked whether Israel’s attacks over the weekend qualified as the type of “death and destruction” U.S. officials have warned about.

“We’ve also said we don’t want to see a major ground operation in Rafah that would really make it hard for the Israelis to go after Hamas without causing extensive damage and potentially a large number of deaths. We have not seen that yet,” he said, claiming that Israel was operating mostly in a corridor on Rafah’s outskirts.

One reporter at the press conference, CBS News’s Ed O’Keefe, pressed Kirby after those comments.

“How does this not violate the red line the president laid out?” asked O’Keefe.

“As I said, we don’t want to see a major ground operation. We haven’t seen that at this point,” Kirby replied.

“How many more charred corpses does the president have to see before he considers a change in policy?” O’Keefe asked in response.

“We don’t want to see a single more innocent life taken,” Kirby said, before flipping out and remarking that he “kind of” took “a little offense at the question.”

The exchange was telling, as the Biden administration has previously said that any major operation in Rafah would constitute a “red line.” Events over the weekend would seem to show Israel has embarked on such an operation, with an estimated 45 Palestinians killed in a strike on Sunday and chilling images of burned corpses circulating on social media.

As Israel’s brutal war in Gaza leads to more civilian deaths, Biden runs the risk of losing the support of voters critical to his reelection campaign. His administration has sought to bury a report on Israel’s actions in Gaza and has pledged to defend Israel and its leaders in the face of a war crimes inquiry by the International Criminal Court. Increasingly, Biden’s statements attempting to reassure the American public are being undermined by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the war continues. The best option, which Biden has been so far unwilling to adopt, may be halting weapons shipments to Israel, but there’s no telling if or when Biden will ever reach that point.

Judge Juan Merchan ripped into Donald Trump attorney Todd Blanche over his closing arguments during the former president’s hush-money trial Tuesday.

Blanche told the jurors that Trump could be sent to prison if convicted, drawing the ire of the prosecution, as well as Merchan. Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass called Blanche’s comment a “blatant” and “inappropriate move” by the defense, and Merchan concurred.

“I think that comment was outrageous, Mr. Blanche. You know as someone who has been a prosecutor that it’s simply not allowed, period. It’s hard to see how that was an accident,” Merchan said, once the jurors had been dismissed for lunch. Upon Steinglass’s request, Merchan agreed to give a curative instruction to the jury when they returned.

Merchan told the jury that Blanche’s comment was “improper, and you must disregard it.”

“If there is a verdict of guilty, it will be up to me to impose a sentence,” Merchan said, adding that a “prison sentence is not required in the event of a guilty verdict.”

Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman said this was embarrassing for Blanche.

It’s no secret that Trump faces jail time in this trial, but mentioning a potential sentence to a jury is considered a bad idea in criminal law. It’s not the first misstep for Blanche in this case, though. He’s been admonished by Merchan before when trying to come up with excuses for Trump to evade his gag order. He also had to be corrected by witness Michael Cohen during a cross-examination, and embarrassed himself reading insults in court. These missteps, as Merchan noted, should not be coming from someone who is a former federal prosecutor.

Trump is on trial for trying to cover up an affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election by paying her off with Cohen’s help. The Republican presidential nominee faces 34 felony charges for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime, and has pleaded not guilty to all charges.