Trump threw his own legal defense 'under a freight train': Retired Harvard Law professor

Former President Donald Trump torched his best defense in the election cases against him when he told NBC's Kristen Welker that he doesn't respect his own attorneys and followed his own instincts when he tried to overturn the vote.

Retired Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe elaborated on the legal bungle in a discussion with CNN's Anderson Cooper.

"Did the former president undermine his own defense by saying it was his decision to go after the results of the 2020 election?" asked Cooper. "There was talk he was going to argue at trial he was listening to legal advice."

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"I think he threw his own defense not just under a bus but under a freight train," said Tribe, a prominent proponent of the view that Trump is constitutionally ineligible for office. "It's very hard to say that I was relying on legal advice as a defense at trial when you tell the world through Kristen Welker on NBC that he was relying on his own advice. It's said sometimes that only a fool hires himself as a lawyer to defend himself. I don't think Trump is a fool, but he's certainly a narcissist. He just has to say that he is responsible for everything. He doesn't depend on anybody. That's all very nice politically. But in the courtroom, he's just blown that defense, the defense that I was just relying on my lawyers and therefore I didn't have a state of mind that it takes to commit these crimes. He's just blown that out of the water."

"I mean, he did, sort of, you know, hedge it a little," added Cooper. "He said while it was his decision, he also said he, quote, listened to some people. Does that give him wiggle room to still attempt the advice of counsel defense? He also said that, you know, he didn't trust and didn't, you know, respect the lawyers who were arguing the counterargument, which was basically the White House counsel and legitimate attorneys."

"You know, he can say he relied on attorneys and he relied on other people, all kinds of people," replied Tribe. "But the specific defense that says, I was just following the directions of my lawyers, it's a very narrow defense. It's not just, like, saying, you know, I read the papers, I listen to everybody. That won't do. If you are accused of the various crimes that Jack Smith has obtained indictments for and you say that, well, it may be that I did these things, but I was innocent because I was basically a pawn following by lawyer's instruction, that's not an easy defense under any circumstances."

But to say what Trump has said, "then that defense is just not going to fly with the jury, especially if you're not willing to take the stand," he closed. "Because he has a right not to, but the only way he could explain all of that to the jury is by giving up that right and taking the stand. But he's not likely to because everyone knows that he would perjure himself. So, he's really gotten himself into quite a corner."

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