Donald Trump's legal loss on Friday was in a civil fraud case, but that verdict, combined with others involving the former president, paints a picture of how things will go for him in criminal cases, according to one legal analyst.
Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner, who recently explained about an inappropriate addition to the ex-president's Supreme Court filing, wrote a piece for MSNBC on Friday in which he argues that Trump's loss in the case in New York "is a powerful predictor of what’s to come in his criminal trials."
"The ruling, though likely to be appealed, marks another defeat for Trump in a civil case," according to Kirschner's piece. "And those losses are powerful predictors of what’s likely coming once his criminal trials commence."
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He goes on to argue that Trump "fights every battle, large and small, in the court of public opinion."
"That court has no rules of engagement, no rules of evidence and no rules of procedure. There are no attorneys to object and no judges to tell Trump to sit down and cease disrupting the proceedings. There are no constitutional constraints. So, during his campaign rallies, his hallway outbursts outside courtrooms and his interviews with media outlets, Trump can lie, largely with impunity," the ex-prosecutor added. "But when his legal disputes move into courts of law, he loses. When the rules of evidence and procedure apply to legal contests, Trump loses."
After recapping some of Trump's civil losses, including two to columnist E. Jean Carroll, Kirschner says, in each case, the "former president would emerge from the courtroom to spew more lies about the case to media cameras. But inside the courtroom, where cameras were not allowed, Trump’s legal team was required to follow the rules, and Trump again lost."
"This string of civil trial losses augurs poorly for the former president’s coming criminal trials. First, unlike civil trials, defendants are required to attend all trial proceedings in criminal cases," he explains. "Given that his 'best' result (being ordered to pay 'only' $5 million) came in a trial Trump ghosted, it’s hard to see how his daily attendance at the criminal trials would work to his advantage."
