Trump's lawyer 'stonewalled' court because he knew he was going to lose: legal experts
The reason that Donald Trump's lawyer was refusing to answer the questions being asked of him in court on Monday was likely because he knew there was no way he was going to win, three legal experts told MSNBC on Monday evening.
Before the Washington, D.C. Court of Appeals, Trump's lawyer, John Sauer, repeatedly refused to answer the hypothetical questions being posed to him. Ultimately, this led Judge Cornelia Pillard to snap at him.
“I don’t hear you giving any weight at all to the interest in a fair trial,” she said, calling his comments “elusive.”
Speaking to MSNBC on Monday evening, legal experts Glenn Kirschner, Neal Katyal and Andrew Weissmann agreed Sauer knew he had a losing case on his hands.
Katyal, who previously served as acting solicitor general for President Barack Obama, explained that he was constantly thinking throughout the hearing: "Mr. Trump's lawyer, answer the question, answer the question."
He explained that Judge Pillard spent 20 minutes just trying to get a single answer out of him, which is one of many reasons the arguments went beyond the typical 40-minute mark, lasting nearly two and a half hours. Katyal explained that such a timeline isn't unheard of for that court because all of their cases end up being long, as the judges dive deep into the legal discussions.
As for Sauer, "he could not answer them," Katyal said. "Trump's lawyer basically took this kind of 'go home or big' approach, and he is going home, basically, at the end of this."
Weissmann agreed in his assessment of Sauer's tactics.
"If you think you are going to lose, and this proceeding is essentially stonewall here," she said. "So, that there is no concessions that can be latched to go on to. But to give an example of what Neal is talking about in terms of the question that the court had that was really legitimate was to say, look, it's a given that every defendant, when they are released, they are told do not commit a crime. That includes: Do not threaten a witness. That's not a gag order. That's just — you can't commit a criminal act while on bail."
Katyal added that Sauer wasn't the only one who faced tough questions, as special counsel Jack Smith's prosecutors did as well.
"I do think the government caught some hard questions — Jack Smith's team, towards the end. They weren't questions really that Donald Trump's lawyer had focused on, but ones they, in their own research, did," continued Katyal. "In particular, I think they were concerned, did Judge Chutkan's gag order reach too far? Did it say, for example, Donald Trump cannot criticize the prosecutor Jack Smith in a presidential debate or something like that? That, the panel is saying, the First Amendment protects."
Katyal predicted that the panel may trim the gag order a little, but not much. Then, for the first time in history, a former president will be gagged by the second highest court.
When asked whether Trump could appeal, the legal analysts agreed that the court will likely rewrite the gag order narrow enough that the Supreme Court will refuse to hear it.
See the discussion in the video below or at the link here.
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