Former President Donald Trump went on an angry tirade outside of a Manhattan courthouse on Monday and some observers think he did himself no favors when trying to talk about the facts of his hush money trial.
After the conclusion of the first day of testimony at the trial, Trump went outside the courtroom to declare that the case being brought against him had to do with "bookkeeping," which he described as "a very minor thing in terms of the law."
Trump then tried to pin the blame on his former attorney, Michael Cohen, who went to jail for making an illegal campaign contribution to Trump in the form of hush-money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential election.
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"This is a case where you pay a lawyer, it's a lawyer, and they call it a legal expense, that's the exact term they use: Legal expense, in the books," said Trump. "And another thing that wasn't even said was, we never even deducted it as a tax deduction... most people want to deduct everything."
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It was this last admission that caused many people who have been following the case to raise their eyebrows.
"The fact that they never took it as a tax deduction is telling, not exculpatory," argued former FBI special agent Asha Rangappa. "This guy deducted his son’s $5 Boy Scout dues as a charitable donation. More evidence of trying not to leave a paper trail."
George Porter, a professor of computer science at the University of California San Diego, similarly didn't think much of Trump's attempts to shift the blame onto Cohen.
"'My lawyer told me it was OK' is generally good advice, but in this case his lawyer went to prison for about a year for participating in this exact scheme, which definitely undercuts that rationale somewhat," he argued.
Sirius XM host Dean Obeidallah, meanwhile, wondered if Trump wasn't playing a dangerous game by talking about Cohen, who will be a witness at the trial.
"Trump attacks Michael Cohen-a witness in the case- right outside the courtroom in violation of the gag order," he wrote.
National security attorney and Trump critic Bradley Moss, on the other hand, just had a two-word reaction to Trump's courthouse rant: "Keep talking."
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