'There’s going to be a criminal conviction': Ex-Trump attorney predicts guilty verdict in NY

12 March 2024

Former President Donald Trump's first criminal trial is due to begin in less than two weeks, and one GOP-aligned attorney doesn't think Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will have a difficult time securing a guilty verdict against his former client.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, lawyer Alan Dershowitz — who represented Trump in his first impeachment trial — said the best thing Trump's legal team could do would be to expect a worst-case scenario, given their current 0-3 record in New York courtrooms. He added that it would be foolhardy to allow the former president to take the stand in his own defense. Four other unnamed sources close to Trump also told the publication that they fear Bragg could set "potential perjury traps" for Trump should he be sworn in on the stand.

"The Trump team ought to assume that there is going to be a criminal conviction. It’s a terrible case, in my opinion... but any first-year law student could win a prosecution against Donald Trump in Manhattan, so they’re going to have to assume that they're going to lose this case in front of a jury," Dershowitz said. "[My advice would be] focus on the appeal, not the trial, so in that case, you don’t have the client take the stand. I don’t see what Donald Trump would really have to add in testimony."

"I think Trump is right to consider these cases political, and he is right to respond to these cases publicly by saying they’re political," he continued. "But he shouldn’t give the other side any hook to hang their hats on by engaging in histrionics inside the courtroom, whether on the stand or seated at this table with his attorneys."

Dershowitz's comments were met with stiffness from Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung, who said the ex-president's legal team "does not share these absurd views peddled by cowardly unnamed sources."

"We won’t litigate this case in the media and those who try [to] do so clearly are speaking from ignorance and stupidity," Cheung told Rolling Stone.

Bragg was the first to indict Trump in the spring of 2023. The Manhattan DA charged the former president with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to "hush money" payments to multiple women facilitated by his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, during his 2016 presidential campaign. While that charge is typically a misdemeanor, Bragg escalated them to felonies by characterizing the hush money payment as an illegal campaign contribution.

Cohen himself has already served a three-year federal prison sentence for his role in the scheme among other crimes, and will be considered one of Bragg's star witnesses in the trial. Adult film star Stormy Daniels — who received a $130,000 hush money payment in 2016 — may also be called to the stand. Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, admitted to having an affair with Trump shortly after his wife, Melania, gave birth to their son, Barron.

Trump has yet to win a case in New York since becoming a private citizen in 2021. In 2023, he was ordered to pay a $5 million civil judgment to writer E. Jean Carroll for sexual abuse. Then earlier this year, he lost a separate defamation case, with a jury agreeing that he lied when accusing Carroll of fabricating her claims of sexual assault for financial reasons and finding him liable for $83.3 million in compensatory and punitive damages. He was also ordered to pay the State of New York $455 million in disgorgement penalties and interest after Judge Arthur Engoron ruled that he fraudulently inflated the value of his real estate portfolio for tax and insurance benefits.

Bragg's prosecution of Trump may be the only one of the president's four upcoming trials to conclude before election day, as his two federal trials and his Fulton County, Georgia election interference trial have yet to be officially scheduled. The Supreme Court is currently weighing his argument of absolute broad presidential immunity from federal prosecution. This has effectively stalled his DC election interference case until at least September, as the Court has until June to hand down its ruling and US District Judge Tanya Chutkan has promised both sides between two and three months to prepare for trial.

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