Trump left his lawyers 'adrift' by crippling ability to prepare for trial start: expert
Donald Trump's attacks on potential jurors and the court officials overseeing his so-called hush money trial have put his lawyers in a bad position going into a weekend where they need to prepare for the hearing to actually begin, a legal expert said Friday.
According to CNN's Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig, a ruling by Judge Juan Merchan that kept Trump's lawyers from being provided a list of the first three witnesses to be called by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office is a major setback for his defense.
At issue was Merchan agreeing with prosecutors that there are well-founded fears that the former president could put those witnesses' lives at risk if he knew their names and took to his Truth Social platform to publicize them.
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According to the former federal prosecutor, that is a serious blow to Trump's lawyers who need to firm up how they will prepare for witnesses to be called on Monday or Tuesday, once the jury is seated.
"The thing for Donald Trump though, where he's suffering, is now the DA is refusing to give over to the defense lawyers the order of witnesses, and that's a big deal because if you're Donald Trump's team, you head into this weekend, you've seen their witness list, but there's dozens of names on that list," he explained.
"You need to prepare for whoever you're going to be cross-examining potentially on Monday or Tuesday and if the DA's office is unwilling to give you the order and the judge is unwilling to make them give you the order because they don't want Trump tweeting about them, then Donald Trump is sort of leaving his own lawyers adrift," he continued before pronouncing,
"So there's a real consequence to that."
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