Trump defense rests at New York hush money trial, ex-president doesn’t testify

The chonky fascist was whining about being silenced and then decides not to take the stand.

Just like all the other times, he never had any intention of taking the stand. That was show for his base -- the same base that now believes that the gag order somehow prohibits him from testifying. He's appealing to the dumbest of the dumb because they're going to stick by him no matter what, and are also the ones who are likely to make the most noise and most likely to commit acts of violence in his name.

Now he can pretend he got silenced as the reason why he didn't take the stand.

And contempt.

And this is likely exactly why they didn’t call him to the stand. They knew he’d immediately perjure himself, because he’s a compulsive liar. No amount of coaching or “just keep your answers short and only answer exactly what was asked” will keep Trump from lying on the stand.

Intimidation. Plain and simple.

It depends.

Let's be realistic -- nobody on that jury cared about testimony from anyone other than Cohen and Stormy Daniels. The rest were just bureaucratic filler that most of the jury probably couldn't care less about.

Their attempts to discredit Stormy Daniels was considered by most to be a huge miss, as she seemed to hold up better on cross-examination than she was on direct. Most believe this is a result of Trump demanding the lawyers try to make her say that the sex never happened at all, rather than focusing on details that actually matter to the case or simply trying to get her testimony tossed on relevance grounds. In fact, they failed twice here: Had the defense just conceded that the sex act occured, her testimony may not have been allowed at all since she had little to nothing to contribute to the actual allegations. And after that, the judge likely would have declared a mistrial due to the prejudicial nature of her testimony if Trump hadn't put it in play in the first place by denying the sex happened.

They scored a pretty huge win when they got Cohen to admit that he stole money. And in the end, that still may save Trump if it creates enough doubt in even one juror's mind. But that was pretty much the only win they got, and even that was more of a "even blind squirrels occasionally find nuts" kind of way. The rest of their defense ranged from largely ineffective to incompetent, and their one and only defense witness seemed to do more harm than good if reports are to be believed.

So no, they didn't really defend him very well, but that's largely a result of them listening to Trump's demands instead of putting on a coherent defense. But they did get one really good shot in, and that shot alone may have been just enough to get the job done.

1t d3p3nds 0n wha7 y0u m3an.

I have no hope of him ever facing consequences like the rest of us would.

I feel stupid for reading any of these articles or commenting on them. We all know this movie ends with him getting away with it, but it's still compelling compelling for some stupid reason.

Has anyone in this family even seen a chicken?