Lawyers desperate to keep Trump away from defamation trial after 'disastrous' deposition last year: expert

On Tuesday, former President Donald Trump's attorney Joe Tacopina confirmed that his client will not take the stand in the civil rape trial brought by writer E. Jean Carroll, who claims the former president assaulted her in a department store dressing room in the late 1990s — a charge the former president has claimed is a hoax.

This is exactly what any reasonable attorney trying to help the former president should want, legal analyst Lisa Rubin told MSNBC's Mehdi Hasan.

"So, Donald Trump is not testifying at this trial," said Hasan. "Instead, he is in Scotland, breaking ground on a new golf course. What is the significance of him not even showing up to trial, let alone not testifying?"

"On one hand, Donald Trump is trying to signal to this jury, this is beneath me. This is not even significant enough for me to show up. That is how much of a liar this woman is," said Rubin. "On the other hand, it's a very smart strategy for his lawyers to keep him away. Because we have read excerpts of his deposition in this case. They were released as part of motion practice in the case in January. And that deposition was, Mehdi, just a disaster for Donald Trump."

"That's the deposition where, confronted with the picture of himself and his then-wife Ivana Trump, meeting E. Jean Carroll and her then-husband, John Johnson, he looked down and said, 'oh, that's Marla,' mistaking her for his second wife, Marla Maples," Rubin added. "The problem is that Marla Maples was exactly his type. In fact, he's been videotaped saying, in a very bizarre way, that he hoped his then one-year-old daughter would turn out to be every bit as beautiful as Marla Maples, and talked about, particular physical attributes, right?"

"I remember that," said Hasan.

"Yes, it was quite disturbing," said Rubin. But if Marla Maples was his type, and then he looks at a picture of E. Jean Carroll and thinks it's Marla Maples, how credible is it for him to then say, she's not my type? Which E. Jean Carroll testified, is basically a translation for, she's too ugly to assault."

Watch the segment below or at this link.

Lisa Rubin says Trump's lawyers wouldn't want him to testify at rape trialwww.youtube.com