New evidence destroys Trump's major defense in election interference case: Ex-prosecutor

A Donald Trump-associated lawyer being present on the ground on Jan. 6, 2021, could handicap the former president's "major defense" in his criminal cases over attempts to overturn the election in 2020, a former prosecutor said on Friday.

Former Chief Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo appeared on The Lead With Jake Tapper on CNN on Friday, and was asked about new revelations that pro-Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro was present with Alex Jones prior to the insurrection attempt. That connection, she said, is a missing link that could harm Trump's case.

"So one of the major defenses for Donald Trump in these cases is I was relying on my attorney, right? And that's going to be one of his defenses. It's called advice of counsel, and that requires you in good faith rely on your lawyer's advice. And if your lawyer made a mistake and gave you bad advice by accident, then you might not be responsible if you accidentally committed a crime," she said. "What this shows, I think, is this was not a good-faith legal advice given to Trump. This was an activist lawyer who part of his strategy ... was to create havoc and destruction and chaos hoping that would put pressure on the Supreme Court later on."

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She added that "having him there on the ground as part of that chaos and watching it, that goes beyond legal advice, and I think it puts him much more, it takes the aid of the defense away from Donald Trump significantly, and it makes him much more of a participant on the ground than just a lawyer giving advice."

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