Trump is forcing his team into a losing strategy at criminal trial: legal expert

Donald Trump is forcing his attorney to take on a strategy that's more likely to lead to a conviction in the hush money cover-up case he faces, according to a criminal defense lawyer.

Attorney David Oscar Markus appeared on CNN on Sunday, here he was asked about recent testimony in the criminal case in which the former president faces 34 felony charges related to alleged payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Specifically, the host raised the topic of Hope Hicks, Trump's longtime aide who testified the payments were at least partly related to the 2016 election.

"How damaging do you think that testimony was for the defense?" the host asked.

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"It's really devastating," the lawyer responded, "because she's an ally of Trump and is seen as someone who still is loyal to Trump in many ways. So when she's up there and crying, it's really tough on the Trump team and it's much different than [Michael] Cohen who has an axe to grind, who will be coming up."

He added that it was a "tough Friday" and that, "as a criminal defense lawyer, you never want the prosecution to end on a Friday."

The expert went on to say it was "interesting" to see that Hicks testified that Trump's strategy was "deny, deny, deny."

He said that particular "strategy often does not not work for criminal defense lawyers in a trial.

"You have to be willing to accept and concede some things and fight on the big ones. And it looks like they're denying everything in this trial, which is a tough burden for the lawyer, Todd Blanche, to take on," he said. "Todd's a good lawyer. I know him very well, but it looks like he's having to take on every single fight in this case, adopting that deny, deny, deny strategy yeah, it's hard."

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