Every pundit who covers Trump has repeatedly said what every lawyer who covers Trump has said since Trump was first expected to be indicted: Don’t ever let Trump testify in his defense.
Why? Because Trump can’t control the impulse to lie. Any testimony for Trump is a perjury trap. If you ask Trump a question he can’t truthfully answer without incriminating himself, which includes many questions, he’ll defend himself with a lie and without any apparent concern for consistency — he may say one thing one day and the opposite the next.
The challenge Trump’s lawyers face now is that Trump is already talking. He has not been under oath, but he’s been answering questions on CNN and FOX, and he has incriminated himself repeatedly. He has also contradicted himself. And several instances of both are on tape and available to Jack Smith when the so-called “documents case” goes to trial.
Trump’s lawyers have a problem — Trump can’t shut up
No matter how often Trump is cautioned to avoid talking about his case, this advice is consistently ignored in favor of the only thing Donald Trump knows how to do: defend himself with whatever pops into his mind at any given time.
The problem with Trump’s “live in the moment” strategy is that it isn’t a strategy — it’s a distraction. And it works, but only at that moment. The second you stop to think about what he said, everything falls apart. And now, these moments have been captured for posterity and will serve as evidence in a criminal trial.
Taped interviews and Trump rallies are all the testimony Jack Smith needs
Trump could never play poker. He has too many “tells.” When he wants to avoid a question he can’t answer honestly without incriminating himself, he’ll quickly blurt out a lie that denies the accusation (often in undertones), then immediately jump to a transition phrase such as “And by the way …” or “But here’s the other thing . . .” or “But here’s what they’re not telling you. . .” always implying that “Whatever you think you see, whatever you think you hear, it’s not the truth.”
You’ll notice that when Trump spews such nonsense, he’ll almost always do a thing with his hands. You know, where he puts them in front of him like he’s holding something, then he moves his hands closer together, then further apart repeatedly. I don’t know what he thinks that does, but to me, it means he’s making shit up. He does that when he feels like he’s telling the story that will sell whatever B.S. he’s selling. Then he finishes with an off-topic insult designed to disparage some opponent, or perhaps he’ll cite some petty grievance unrelated to the original question.
The result: the question asked is never answered. Moreover, Trump has used the moment to make himself look like a victim and his opponent look dishonest while ensuring that the topic introduced by the interviewer is now off the table and it’s time to move on. Next!
When the next question is asked, the same tactics of obfuscation, outright denial/lies, and weird hand gestures are again followed by a swift transition to an accusation/insult or grievance. Lather, rinse, repeat.
What will happen at trial?
Trump won’t testify under oath, but his lawyers must create a defense for him. They have a few options, but Trump has made most of them moot.
When Trump’s lawyers say Trump didn’t know he had inadvertently taken classified documents, they can play the tape of Trump bragging about having an Iran war plan in his hand.
When Trump’s lawyers say he complied fully with the DOJ when they originally subpoenaed him, Jack Smith can play the tape of Trump telling Brett Baier that he “didn’t have time” to go through all his boxes before the deadline given him.
When Trump’s lawyers say he gave “everything” back after Mar-a-Lago was searched, Jack Smith can play the tape of Trump admitting he gave “some” of the documents back.
And there will be more. We know this because Trump can’t stop defending himself. It’s his fatal flaw. If he were a Shakespearean character, he would, in the course of the next several trials, lose every qualified lawyer who had been foolish enough to agree to represent him, fire any public defender unfortunate enough to be assigned to him, and end up representing himself.
In the end, Trump would be found rambling incoherently and would need to be escorted out of court in a straight jacket.
Perhaps life does imitate art, and we’ll get lucky.