Trump lawyer tripped up his own question by adding just one unnecessary word: analyst
May 20, 2024
Criminal defense attorney Danny Cevallos said on Monday that Donald Trump's lawyer, Todd Blanche, has been asking questions that may be hurting his own client's defense.
During an appearance on MSNBC, Cevallos theorized about reasons why Blanche hasn't been objecting to what he says are leading questions being posed by prosecutors.
In essence, Cevallos believes that Trump's lawyers do not want to clutter the trial with objections that they think will make them look "ticky-tacky" and "petty."
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That said, he believed that Trump's lawyers may nonetheless have been better served by being more aggressive when it comes to clamping down on leading questions from prosecutors.
"I think leading questions in this context are so devastating. It's why you're not allowed to use them with your own witness," he said. "I cannot overstate how devastating leading questions are because the attorney is basically testifying. And at the end of that testimony, he's asking the witness to rubber stamp it yes or no. So because they're so powerful, that's why you can't use them with your own witness, and the prosecution has been able to ask leading questions on critical issues."
The attorney then explained that a leading question is one that is worded in such a way that the questioner's desired answer is itself contained within the question.
"The lawyer makes a statement the way the lawyer wants to make a statement and then gets the witness to say yes or no," he said.
He then explained how Blanche had botched one of his own leading questions to Cohen, when he asked Cohen whether "your journey has been to attack Trump daily?"
Cohen, himself a one-time lawyer, seized on the inclusion of the word "journey" and replied, "No, my journey is to tell the truth," which was decidedly not the answer that Blanche was seeking.
"Look what happened with the addition of one word," said Cevallos.
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