Trump's 'defense team in a difficult spot' as his lies come home to roost: legal analyst
Reacting to an appearance by one of Donald Trump's lawyers who sat down with MSNBC host Ari Melber on Tuesday night and proceeded to melt down when Melber began reading from an extensive list of Trump lies, legal analyst Danny Cevallos suggested the former president's legal team is unwillingly fighting a losing battle.
During his appearance with Melber, attorney Joe Tacopina went on a bug-eyed, hand-waving defense of Trump and then attempted to snatch papers listing the Trump lies from the MSNBC host's hand.
Based upon Tacopina's frantic snapping back at Melber, Cevallos claimed it looked like the Trump attorney knew he was struggling to make his case but was likely reluctantly doing so at Trump's urging.
Watching Tacopina attempting to explain away Trump's hush-money payoff to adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election as not politically motivated, the MSNBC legal analyst wrote, "You can’t really blame Trump’s attorney. Prosecutors get to select and curate the facts they take — or don’t take — to trial. Defense attorneys don’t get to pick their facts. They often have to take the facts as they are, and figure out what to do about them on the fly."
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He then added that "It probably wasn’t his [Tacopina's] choice," before adding, "His mission was likely to explain away Trump’s lies while also preemptively undermining the accusations in New York and Georgia."
"Even Tacopina would probably concede (in private) that his defense of Trump wasn’t perfect, but it was the best he could do under the circumstances," Cevallos wrote before pointing out that "lies are lies" even if they aren't delivered under oath.
"Unsworn lies made to private persons can be crimes too, if, for example, the lies are used to defraud victims. In fact, the very crime that reportedly is being contemplated by the New York County District Attorney is one that criminalizes falsifying business records. The statute does not require the falsification to be sworn. But whether a crime or not, whether uttered to law enforcement or written in a business record, lies are still lies," he elaborated.
Noting that Trump's lies would be a "career ender" for most any other politician, the legal analyst pointed his lawyers have their work cut out for them because, in this case, Trump is not facing the court of public opinion.
"This puts his defense team in a difficult spot, as we saw on Tuesday. But no matter how many times you try to hide behind legalese and semantics, lies are lies. Often lying is not a crime. Sometimes, it is," he concluded.
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