Trump lawyers 'missed the mark' by following his orders to be 'aggressive': legal expert

Donald Trump's attorneys appeared to be following their client's orders to attack witnesses and even jurors in his hush money trial, but a legal expert showed how that strategy was already backfiring.

The former president has reportedly targeted his legal team with his "wrath" for what he believes has been an insufficient defense in his hush money trial, and Palm Beach County state attorney Dave Aronberg explained to MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that their attacks may have satisfied Trump but would probably not help his case.

"Trump wants his attorneys to be like Roy Cohn, he wants them to be aggressive," Aronberg said. "These attorneys were aggressive [Thursday], but I think they missed their mark. They were going after [Stormy Daniels' attorney Keith] Davidson for being an extortionist, a bad guy. Extortion is not a defense to falsification of business records [and] extortion is not a defense to campaign finance violations. In their haste to please their client, I don't think they won points when it comes to defending their client."

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Aronberg expressed surprise that Trump has so far escaped serious consequences for violating his gag order by attacking witnesses in the case, but he believes New York justice Juan Merchan has set a bright line around the jury.

"I don't think he'll ever serve any time in jail pretrial," Aronberg said. "I think it is possible he gets sent to time out, there is a holding area in the courthouse. But he'd have to really attack the jurors, I think that is the bright line. It's one thing to attack witnesses. That's bad enough, especially if it is not Michael Cohen. When you attack jurors who are not public figures, who didn't sign up for this, they just signed up to do their civic duty, that's where I think the judge will draw the line. It could lead to perhaps a time out, [but] I don't anticipate him wearing an orange jumpsuit soon."

Watch the video below or at this link.

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