'Goading the judge': Expert thinks Trump is trying to distract from David Pecker testimony
A legal expert speculated that Donald Trump could be trying to distract voters from his trial by violating the gag order and picking a fight with the judge.
Tuesday morning, Trump's lawyers defended him at a hearing called after prosecutors alleged multiple violations of a gag order placed on him in the hush money case. The order's aim to is stop intimidation of potential witnesses and jury members.
But the judge didn't seem to buy their arguments.
Trump's lawyer, Todd Blanche, claimed that his client merely reposted what other people said — but the judge pointed out that Trump had embellished the comments of others.
"So, his attack on the jurors, Donald Trump added his own words," former FBI general counsel Andrew Weissmann said on MSNBC. "He wasn't simply forwarding.
"Even if you were to take that argument, and I think that's a pretty far-fetched argument. I mean, let's just get real here. If you are in good faith trying to comply with that gag order, you simply would have asked your counsel or asked the court before you did it, if you were really trying to" comply.
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Trump faces up to $1,000 per violation or up to 30 days in jail. The judge has not yet ruled.
Many experts have speculated that no judge would send Trump to jail, though in an email to supporters on Monday night, Trump teased "all hell breaks loose in 24 hours."
"Friend, in 24 hours, the hearing on my GAG ORDER will begin. I COULD BE THROWN IN JAIL AT THAT VERY MOMENT!" he claimed.
"This is Donald Trump goading the judge to do this," Weissmann said of Trump's rant after the hearing. "And I think the reason is he would much rather have all of us talk about his being jailed than talk about the evidence at the trial. So, he wants to play the martyr. He wants to have this happen."
Weissmann's comments came as the National Enquirer's David Pecker started his second day of testifying. He was "covering what I think is going to be a lot of damaging evidence," Weissmann said.
Pecker's testimony admits, "He was in cahoots with Donald Trump to essentially only give favorable coverage to Donald Trump and negative coverage to Donald Trump's adversaries. Again, I think this is really a very standard tactic for Donald Trump, which is just try and change the narrative," Weissmann closed.
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'Goading the judge': Expert thinks Trump is distracting from crimes by violating gag order youtu.be