Donald Trump's legal position is worse than at any other time in his life, a biographer explained in The New York Times on Tuesday.
"Mr. Trump has projected his usual bravado, and raised millions of dollars online from outraged supporters since federal agents descended on the property more than two weeks ago and carted off boxloads of material including highly classified documents," Maggie Haberman, Glenn Thrush, and Alan Feuer reported. "But something is different this time — and the errant court filing offered a glimpse into the confusion and uncertainty the investigation has exposed inside Mr. Trump’s camp."
The newspaper reminded readers what Trump learned a half-century ago.
"For years, Mr. Trump operated from a playbook taught to him in the 1970s by Roy M. Cohn, the ruthless former federal prosecutor and aide to Senator Joseph McCarthy who represented Mr. Trump early in Mr. Trump’s career," The Times reported. "That approach — demonize investigators, intimidate allies to keep them from straying, paint himself as persecuted and depict every criticism as a political witch hunt — was Mr. Trump’s go-to strategy to discredit the investigation into his 2016 campaign’s possible ties to Russia, and in his first impeachment trial."
But Trump lacks the legal muscle he once commanded.
"Yet at the time, he had the lawyers in the White House Counsel’s Office helping to guide him, and a team of experienced legal hands familiar with Washington," The Times reported. "Now, as in the days after he lost the 2020 election, Mr. Trump is relying on an ad hoc team of advisers with varying levels of experience and judgment, and trying to use his political support as both a shield and a weapon to be aimed at the people investigating him."
For analysis, the newspaper interviewed Tim O'Brien, the author of the 2005 book TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald.
“He was never subjected to an investigation of this heft and potency prior to his presidency,” O'Brien explained. "Right now he is in the most vulnerable position he has been in, in his life, legally.”
Read the full report.
ALSO IN THE NEWS: 'Yikes': Experts stunned after Trump's late-night release of NARA document
