Trump talks to reporters after opening statements.
After court wrapped up for the day, Trump stepped to the microphone outside the courthouse and dug his own grave.
Trump said as he tried to explain his payments to Michael Cohen:
This is a case that nobody wanted to bring including Alvin Bragg. It was just at the last minute, they decided to do it. It was a case that if you’re looking back, it goes back many, many years, 2015, maybe before that. And it’s a case as to bookkeeping, which is a very minor thing in terms of the law, in terms of all the violent crime that’s going on outside as we, as we speak right outside as we speak.
This is a case where you pay a lawyer, he’s a lawyer and they call it a legal expense. That’s the exact term they use legal expense in the books. And another thing that wasn’t even said was we never even deducted it as a tax deduction. So that takes a haul of as most people want to deduct everything. We never even get off the tax, but they go out the payment to a lawyer, a legal expense in the books.
They didn’t call it construction. They didn’t say you’re building a building. You called a payment to a lawyer because as you know, co uh is a lawyer represented a lot of people over the years and I’m not the only one that wasn’t very good in a lot of ways in terms of his representation, but he represented a lot of people, but he puts in an invoice or whatever, a bill and they pay and they call it a legal expense. I got indicted for that. What else would you call it? Actually, nobody’s been able to say what you’re supposed to call it. If a lawyer puts in a bill or an invoice and you pay the bill and in the book, it’s a little line. That’s a very small, little line. I don’t know if you can even write more than two words. It’s not like you could tell a life story. They marked it down to a legal expense.
Video:
In this case, the “they” that Trump refers to above is himself. He directed that it be labeled a legal expense.
Trump is claiming that he didn’t commit a crime because there wasn’t space in the books to write anything other than legal expenses. That is his defense. Trump has always harbored a delusional belief that using a lawyer for anything makes it legal.
Trump admitted that he paid Michael Cohen, and since Michael Cohen is a lawyer, using a lawyer to commit a crime is a legal expense, in Trump’s mind, and not prosecutable.
Donald Trump should not be talking at all during this trial. He is going to get himself convicted because he keeps trying to politically spin things that can’t be spun.
Michael Cohen has made it clear in previous testimony that Trump’s motive was to hide the story from ever coming out. The hush money payment was an illegal campaign contribution that was intended to hide damaging information from the voters.
Trump can’t explain away any of this part of the case, so he is focused on claiming that his alleged criminal conspiracy wasn’t actually a crime, and in the process, he is giving prosecutors more ammo to potentially convict him.
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