Credit: Pixabay. Without long-term memory, none of us would be functional human beings. In order to make sense of the world, our memory employs all sorts of reference points, anchors if you will. For instance, one very important building block is the memory of places.
Donald Trump's attorney Tuesday evoked pity from one of the former president's most vocal critics as he faced off against New York City prosecutors in a contentious gag order fight.
Lincoln Project co-founder George Conway told CNN viewers Tuesday night that Todd Blanche's struggle to put a good spin Trump's social media outbursts to Judge Juan Merchan — who barked back "you're losing all credibility" — was hard to watch.
"I almost felt bad for Todd Blanche," Conway said. "But that's what happens when you represent a guy who's just that way out there."
Conway's tepid empathy was evoked during a gag order hearing that saw Merchan blast Blanche over his defense of Trump's public statements that the prosecutors contend violated his gag order.
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“There was absolutely no willful violation of the gag order,” Blanche argued before Merchan, who reportedly lost patience with the lawyer he accused of dodging questions.
Conway was present in the courtroom during the hearing and shared what he described as his "favorite moment."
"Blanche said 'my client is trying very, very hard to comply with the order," Conway said. "You could just see the judge looking at Blanche like, 'Oh, come on.'"
Prosecutors contended Trump has violated his gag order at least 10 times. Conway suspects Blanche's efforts were designed simply to please his client.
"Todd Blanche was making these arguments that just were not even close to being anything that was in the zone of convincing or credible," he said. "I mean, arguing essentially that retweets don't count...it just went downhill."
A background witness in former President Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial delivered a "devastating blow" in his testimony Tuesday, according to a trial lawyer watching the case.
Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker took the stand in Manhattan's criminal court to detail stories cooked up to damage Trump's political rivals during his 2016 presidential campaign and, in doing so, did significant damage to Trump's defense, argued criminal defense attorney Stacy Schneider.
"This is a very strategic on the part of the prosecution," Schneider said on a CNN panel. "David Pecker, who is just a background witness in this case, actually dealt very devastating blow to the Trump defense."
Schneider then pointed to Pecker's testimony about Trump's former fixer Michael Cohen and their relationship ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
"There was an arrangement that Michael Cohen would, according to David Pecker, would call him up after one of the Republican debates," Schneider explained. " Whoever was doing the best at the debate, [Cohen] would direct him — David Pecker — to run a devastating story about that person."
For Schneider, this represented a bombshell moment in Pecker's testimony.
"That's setting up...for the jury to see, the fact that Trump allegedly seems to have a pattern and history of gaining an unfair advantage during that election," Schneider said. "And I think that that point, although subtle today, is going to come back later on in the trial."
Among the stories that Pecker admitted to slapping on his covers is one suggesting Trump's Republican contender Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) secretly had a love child and linked to cocaine.
ALSO READ: A criminologist explains why Trump’s Manhattan trial is the biggest threat to his freedom
For Schneider, Pecker laid the foundation that Bragg will build his case upon.
"It's the same theme that that Trump is being tried on right now: unlawfully influencing the election and then covering it up through paying off Stormy Daniels," Schneider said. "I think that was a really subtle and good talking point later on for the [District Attorney.]
Former Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman had some harsh words for former President Donald Trump over his apparent desire to preemptively pardon body man Walt Nauta for his assistance in concealing stolen classified documents in the Mar-a-Lago case.
This comes after federal Judge Aileen Cannon unsealed a trove of documents about the case, revealing the extent to which Trump was warned to return the records he took from the White House.
"This is typical Donald Trump," said Akerman to MSNBC's Joy Reid. "There is nothing new here. The fact that he was telling Walt Nauta that he would pardon him, even if he lied to the FBI, don't worry about it, hang tight, I'm going to pardon you. We have seen that story before."
Ackerman compared Trump's promise to the one he made Roger Stone, the adviser convicted in 2019 of attempting to protect the former president from investigators.
"We saw it with Roger Stone, who the judge in that case when he was convicted found that he was covering up for Donald Trump," Akerman continued. "And lo and behold, what happens? He gets pardoned by Donald Trump. You have Paul Manafort, who was supposedly going to cooperate until Donald Trump started dangling a pardon in front of him. Paul Manafort could have broken open this entire Russian investigation. He knew where the bodies were buried, he knew about the Russian agent that he was dealing with and providing detailed information about various parts of the battleground states, in order to microtarget voters. He wound up clamming up, and lo and behold, he was pardoned. So when Walt Nauta listens to Donald Trump, he sees a history of an individual that's covered a few people's backs. And this is all part of Donald Trump's pattern that he's been conducting since he got into office."
"There's something about all of this that feels very Mafioso," said Reid.
"Very Mafioso," Akerman agreed. "It definitely is. It's like you have to pledge allegiance to the capo ... like the feudal system of providing benefits to the feudal people out there, the serfs, so they do the work for you. They'll take care of destroying tapes so that the government doesn't get evidence of people moving boxes in and out. I mean, it's like he is the guy in charge, and what he says goes. And you have two people that are now defendants in this case in Florida, that it really explains why they haven't cooperated."
Watch the video below or at the link here.
Nick Akerman compares Trump to a feudal lordwww.youtube.com
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