Originally published at: Trump's lawyers appear to have really screwed up in his fraud trial | Boing Boing
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Well, as the saying goes, you get what you pay for.
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He probably thinks he gets a mulligan. A big, beautiful mulligan.
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Won’t he though? If this is such a clear blunder, can’t he sue for legal malpractice, which might (and I’m speculating with zero legal training) lead to a mistrial and a restart of the whole thing? At bare minimum, he can fire them later and buy some time, which seems to be his go-to.
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Or, in Biff’s case, what you don’t pay for when the bill comes due.
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I’m fairly certain the presiding judge is the one who declares a mistrial. It could be grounds for appeal if he doesn’t, but you need competent attorneys to file that appeal.
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I thought about that (or the appeal process), but here’s hoping that whatever legal representation (i.e. that remains willing to do the job with the available funds, & client) actually puts “do a mulligan” on the official paperwork.
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So…in order to achieve a result like that, Trump would have to show that it was likely that he would have won his case but for that error. That’s a high bar. There’s no guarantee he wins with a jury trial, it’s just usually a good idea because juries are easier to legally influence than a judge. But that can go both ways in civil cases, honestly, so it’s not a guarantee that you win. So a do-over has almost zero chance of happening on a claim of legal malpractice. Maybe he could get a partial judgment against his own attorneys, but even that’s unlikely.
ETA: Juries are notoriously unpredictable. While I agree this was a mistake, I don’t think it’s the massive error it’s being made out to be here. Although it is interesting that Trump has been attacking the judge when his own lawyers could have minimized the judge’s influence by simply requesting a jury trial.
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To have been a fly on the wall when this news dropped. But then again, I wouldn’t want to be covered in ketchup.
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When was the last time one of his lawyers actually got paid, anyway?
All the good lawyers have wised up to the fact that Trump never pays anybody for anything, so they either refuse to work for him or demand a retainer fee so high that he won’t (can’t?) pay. All that’s left is a bunch of incompetent bumblefarks.
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Exactly. In Trump’s case: “You get what is still available for purchase, given that most stores now refuse you service due to a history of bounced checks and damage to the brand if you are seen wearing their logo…”
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Well, so much for that.
Though it’ll really help him claim the judge - and therefore trial - was rigged against him, playing to his base (which is the basis for all his “defenses” these days). Which makes me wonder if it might have even been deliberate, his lawyers realizing a jury trial probably wasn’t going to help enough to make a difference to the outcome.
I wonder how Melania is setting up her pre-nup funds, though. If Trump goes broke (i.e. successfully hides his assets and cash), how does she end up with anything? Presumably money is going into trusts as part of the deal, but he’s got cash-flow problems, so that’s going to be limited. Personally I’m fine with Melania getting nothing (relatively speaking), and she and Barron forced to live a very middle class life. It’d be good for the kid, if nothing else.
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I always loved these two guys!
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Yep… always excellent!
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Yeah, I still feel sorry for Barron. Hopefully he can somehow come out of all this and not be a totally horrible human being. I guess Tiffany sort of managed it; at least she’s not being publicly horrible.
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I see what you did there. And appreciate it.
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I suspect Trump’s attorneys looked at the evidence and saw early on that they really didn’t have a leg to stand on and figured they’d play the odds with a bench trial. It’s really the only explanation I can come up with that also explains the repeated frivolous arguments and incompetent defense strategy overall. The whole case has been a legal Hail Mary from the outset.
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