Former President Donald Trump faces a lose-lose situation as he and his legal team grapple with the question of whether he should testify in his criminal hush money case, a legal strategist says.
Jury consultant Steve Duffy told the Independent Wednesday that Trump can't win if he takes the stand in the ongoing Manhattan trial but takes a big risk if he does not.
“Jurors generally don’t react well to criminal defendants not testifying, because it just leads to speculation about, 'Why – what do you have to hide?'” Duffy told the Independent.
Then Duffy took a jab at the criminal defendant in question.
“This is someone who plays very loose and fast with the truth generally,” Duffy said of Trump. “So the odds that he gets caught in a contradiction or undermines his own testimony I think would be very high.”
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For his part, Trump has stated publicly that he wants to take the stand even though legal experts say it would be a "disaster."
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts that he falsified business records to hide hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
He denies an affair with Daniels and claims, without evidence, that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's case a political witch hunt.
"Yeah, I would testify," Trump said during a Mar-a-Lago witch hunt last month. "That's not a trial, that's a scam."
But Duffy suggest taking the witness stand is risky and could blow up his defense.
"That is a lose-lose proposition for many criminal defendants," he said. "The most important thing when someone does testify is their ability to control themselves and you’re talking about someone with a track record of the opposite of control when speaking publicly."