Former President Donald Trump could make the same mistake in his upcoming hush-money criminal trial as he did in his recent defamation trial, according to an attorney.
The trial, set to begin on April 15, could be "disastrous" for Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, if he testifies in his own defense, said Andrew Weissmann, who was a top prosecutor for special counsel Robert Mueller in the Trump-Russia investigation.
"The upcoming Trump NY criminal trial may be a repeat of the disastrous second Trump-Carroll defamation trial if/when Trump takes control of the defense, as he can't help himself at playing lawyer and smarter than everyone, when he's neither," Weissmann wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on April 8.
The upcoming Trump NY criminal trial may be a repeat of the disastrous second Trump
— Andrew Weissmann (weissmann11 on Threads)🌻 (@AWeissmann_) April 8, 2024
-Carroll defamation trial if/when Trump takes control of the defense, as he can’t help himself at playing lawyer and smarter than everyone, when he’s neither.
Newsweek has contacted Weissmann and an attorney for Trump for comment via email.
In January, Trump testified in his own defense in the defamation trial stemming from a lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll. He testified for less than three minutes but was rebuked by Judge Lewis A. Kaplan for breaking the rules of what he could tell the jury, the Associated Press reported at the time. Prior to the rebuke, Trump was threatened with expulsion from the court after repeatedly ignoring warnings to remain quiet while Carroll testified.
Trump was ordered to pay Carroll $83.3 million for comments he made after she first publicly accused him of raping her in the dressing room of a luxury department store in New York. The ruling came after a separate jury awarded Carroll $5 million in May after finding Trump liable for sexual assault and defamation, but not rape.
Despite the verdicts, Trump has continued his attacks on Carroll, prompting calls for her to sue him a third time.
The hush-money case centers on allegations that Trump falsified his company's records to hide the nature of payments made to Michael Cohen, his lawyer at the time, to cover up allegations of extramarital sexual encounters during Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, each punishable by up to four years in prison. He has denied all wrongdoing.
Trump's attorneys filed a motion on April 5 calling for Manhattan Judge Juan Merchan to recuse himself from the case, alleging bias and a conflict of interest because his daughter is a Democratic political consultant.
The hush-money trial is set to be the first of Trump's four criminal cases to go to trial and the first-ever criminal trial of a former president.
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