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Trump Just Did Something So Disrespectful That it Could Turn the Hush-Money Trial Jurors Against Him

An "unwise" move, they said.

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Donald Trump is finally, actually, facing his first CRIMINAL trial, as opposed to civil ones, where he usually loses or settles out of court.

He is in a position to potentially face jail time in the current Manhattan case, which pits his word against those who say his “hush money” payments to Stormy Daniels amounted to election interference.

If found guilty, it would be irony of the highest order — his “Stop the Steal” campaign resulted in the largest attack on our Capitol since 1812. He pretended that others were committing election interference in 2020, but would be found guilty of committing it himself four years earlier.

But what he did today was just egregious.

Normally, when jurors (or potential jurors) are introduced to the court, the defendant rises. But as Renato Mariotti, former prosecutor and legal analyst, pointed out today, Trump refused.

“In my over 20 years practicing criminal law, I have never observed a defendant refuse to stand and face the jury. Any competent lawyer would tell their client that his fate is in the jury’s hands and they will watch everything he does. Trump’s disrespect for the jury is unwise,” he said.

Indeed, we’re not hearing this from a DEFENSE attorney, we’re hearing this from a prosecutor. If the PROSECUTOR says that a defendant should probably stand up when the potential jury is announced, you know you done messed up, AY-AY-RON.

Trump waves as he returns to the courtroom with attorney Todd Blanche during a recess in his criminal trial as jury selection continued in Manhattan Criminal Court on April 18 in New York City. A legal analyst said that Trump made an “unwise” move in his criminal trial by not standing when jurors were introduced.
BRENDAN MCDERMID-POOL/GETTY IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES

I mean, it’s not like it’s the first time Trump or his legal team has failed to adhere to normal court procedure. Heck, the judge in this case issued a preemptive gag order so he couldn’t outright threaten court staff or witnesses.

But you’d think after being nearly half a billion dollars between his fraud cause and — oh yeah, that one where he kept lying about the woman he raped — that at least Trump himself would have learned his lesson.

Instead, Trump doubles down. Independent reporters from unbiased sources confirmed that Trump did not stand.

His entire legal team stood when the jurors entered the courtroom. You’d think that, even if they didn’t counsel him to, and even if he hadn’t been involved in a million court cases in the past, he would AT LEAST follow their lead.

Then again, we’re talking about Trump here. And people were disgusted:

Andrew Simpson
meet the author

Andrew is a dark blue speck in deep red Central Washington, writing with the conviction of 18 years at the keyboard and too much politics to even stand. When not furiously stabbing the keys on breaking news stories, he writes poetry, prose, essays, haiku, lectures, stories for grief therapy, wedding ceremonies, detailed instructions on making doughnuts from canned biscuit dough (more sugar than cinnamon — duh), and equations to determine the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow. A girlfriend, a dog, two cats, and two birds round out the equation, and in his spare time, Drewbear likes to imagine what it must be like to have spare time.

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