Donald Trump’s testimony went about how you’d expect — except, perhaps, that it didn’t result in a third gag order violation. The former president ranted, raved and even tried to read from a piece of paper pulled from his pocket (the judge didn’t let him).
But is there a method to the seeming madness in the Manhattan courtroom? Probably not — not an effective one, anyway.
One idea I’ve seen offered, by MSNBC legal analyst Chuck Rosenberg and other savvy observers, is that Trump wants to goad Judge Arthur Engoron into making a mistake in the civil fraud trial — for example, to make a comment that would be helpful to the Trump team on appeal. That’s as good of a theory as any, especially when viewed alongside Trump’s avant-garde approach to date, which has resulted in, among other things, losing a substantial part of the case pretrial, Trump earning a gag order, violating it twice, and causing Engoron to broaden it to Trump’s lawyers — all before Trump took the stand on Monday.
To be sure, even if Trump doesn’t succeed in making Engoron do anything especially strange during the trial, the case will ultimately be resolved on appeal either way, and that may take some time to resolve once this trial is over and Engoron rules.
In the meantime, of course, Trump is running for president, and winning the election is the best defense to his several pending criminal cases. So his immediate audience may well reside outside of the courtroom — as suggested by, among other things, his Truth Social post over the lunch break on Monday that took Engoron’s chastising of Trump’s meandering testimony out of context. May as well concoct some campaign material if I have to stand trial, so the thinking may go for the leading GOP presidential candidate.
But whatever Trump’s legal strategy is, if there is an overarching one, it wasn’t apparent from his testimony. Indeed, as my MSNBC colleague Lisa Rubin, who was in the courtroom to watch this weird history unfold firsthand, observed, the state scored some serious points on Monday. Whatever points Trump scored may reside outside of the courtroom or in his mind.
Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Blog newsletter for weekly updates on the top legal stories, including news from the Supreme Court, the Donald Trump cases and more.
