Trump’s Directing the Civil Fraud Trial Like A Show “Making Michael Cohen Cry” Is the Next Scene Up

It’s no secret that Donald Trump is revenge oriented. All the world is his enemy. He has no real friends and most of his allies are on his payroll, including his children. Transactional relationships are his modus operandi. Ironically, he demands loyalty but never gives it. Michael Cohen gave Trump his loyalty for many years and what it got him was disbarment and three years in prison. But Trump’s still after him, nevertheless, for ever moving from his posture of “I’d take a bullet for Mr. Trump.” I’m sure Cohen marvels at uttering those words as we marvel at hearing them. Rolling Stone:

In the weeks prior to the start of the trial, Trump had specifically discussed with some of his legal and political advisers how much he was looking forward to his attorneys making Michael Cohen “cry” on the stand, a person familiar with the situation says. Trump’s former lawyer and fixer is now a listed witness for New York attorney general Letitia James’ office, and the ex-president constantly has revenge on his mind.

Trump hopes that this will be achieved by relentlessly attacking his ex-fixer’s character, intelligence, professional acumen, federal criminal charges, and even personal life. The former president has encouraged his legal team to “fight rough and fight dirty, if you got to” with Cohen and others during the trial, a person close to Trump says, paraphrasing the ex-president. This source has spoken repeatedly to Trump about this case, and adds the former president gets especially animated or agitated when Cohen comes up.

Cohen, however, insists he’s not worried.

“I have provided a hundred hours of testimony before members of Congress, law enforcement agencies and committees whose, on behalf of Donald, primary goal was to denigrate me, discredit me and harass me. None of it has worked and it won’t work now when I take the stand in the [New York attorney general’s] case,” the former Trump attorney tells Rolling Stone. “I am certain Judge Engoron will not allow Donald’s legal team to make a mockery of his court and allow these antics to occur.”

If the team sticks to their, and their client’s, plans, Engoron’s interventions won’t stop them from trying — many times.

It’s already been decided upon by Trump and his counsel to make a zoo out of the civil trial proceedings. The strategy there is to win this case on appeal. Good luck if the prosecution is going by the book and it’s the defense making a mockery of things. But that is their stated strategy. That and creating Fox News clips and soundbites.

It is a bombastic, quintessentially Trumpian legal strategy that’s less geared towards impressing a judge who Trump openly despises, and more a PR blitz aimed at “the Fox News set,” one of the sources briefed on the plans characterizes.

And it’s a strategy that Engoron appears to be aware of. “Who are you talking to — me, the press or the audience?” he barked at Trump’s lawyers on Tuesday.

Still, among Trump’s many attorneys and different legal teams, this approach is not without its detractors. Trump’s legal teams, including ones now tasked with handling the high-stakes civil and criminal cases against him, are routinely fraught with infighting, backstabbing, power grabs, and turnover. There are some Trump legal counselors who believe this strategy could easily backfire, result in too many expensive sanctions, and ultimately make an appeal harder, not easier, people with knowledge of the matter say. There are also some Trump attorneys who are convinced that if the current strategy fails to deliver for the ex-president, he will harshly blame and scream at his legal team, even though the mud-slinging was his own preferred strategy in the first place.

There are scant signs of imminent shakeup for this particular Trump legal crew. But that doesn’t mean the former president isn’t keen on keeping his options open. In the past two weeks, Trump has discussed with some of his longtime associates the names of other defense attorneys who he has considered asking to join the New York legal team, two sources with knowledge of the matter say. Some of the names that Trump recently floated were lawyers who didn’t even have a background in the kind of laws at the center of this trial.

No, but if they’re “TV lawyers” meaning with a certain look and theatricality, then that’s all that’s important. Remember, this is Trump world we’re talking about, reality TV as opposed to reality itself.

But Trump and his lawyers are hoping that their legal strategy in their ongoing courtroom “suicide mission” will score some political and public-relations points for Trump, kick up as much dirt as possible, enrage the judge, gratuitously trash some of the witnesses, and turn the process into a media circus.

Let’s see if they can appeal the case. That’s the goal here. And not all cases can be appealed, you have to have an error, something that will justify an appeal. Judge Engoron is nobody’s fool and he knows what’s going on with Trump. I don’t think Trump has a prayer tripping up Engoron and evidently he’s got qualms if he’s still looking for new legal “talent” that word being defined in this case as making a bullshit argument hold legal water.

Again, good luck Donald. Let’s see you work a miracle here. The likely result is that you’re going to lose a lot of money and the ability to do business in New York.