Trump's plan for 'MAGA freak show' at trial unnerves his ex-lawyer

Rolling Stone is reporting that former President Donald Trump is pushing his lawyers to use his upcoming trial in Washington D.C. to push more bogus conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election in what one source describes as a "MAGA freak show."

Among other things, the former president reportedly wants to subpoena former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in an attempt to pin the blame on her for security failures at the United States Capitol building; to bring up classified intelligence documents that will supposedly show he was right to be suspicious of the official election results; and make allegations that the Chinese government and Hezbollah plotted to hand the election to President Joe Biden.

As if this wasn't enough, Rolling Stone writes that Trump "wants to rant at the judge in the courtroom about how the trial is one big act of 'election interference' designed to hobble Trump’s rising poll numbers."

Attorney Tim Parlatore, who in the past represented Trump in the Mar-a-Lago documents case, argued that employing such a strategy was very likely to blow up in Trump's face.

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"From what I can tell — as an outside observer and former member of Donald Trump’s legal team — about how the trial strategy is taking shape, all I can say is: It is a terrible idea to try to use a criminal trial to stage a political campaign ad,” he told the publication. “That would be incredibly detrimental to the client... It is also a surefire way for you to quickly alienate jurors, particularly when you’re dealing with a jury pool like Washington, D.C.’s.”

Another source who spoke with Rolling Stone anonymously also warned of the perils of treating a criminal trial like an episode of "Celebrity Apprentice."

“It is clear the [former] president would like to turn the trial into a campaign ad as much as he can,” they said. “I mentioned to him that cameras in the courtroom is not what you’d want to do in a case like this. But he and his team see it very, very differently than I do, unfortunately... I think they’re going to make it feel like reality TV.”

Read the full report here.