Ex-Trump lawyer shows Stormy Daniels threw ex-president's legal strategy 'off kilter'

Former President Donald Trump's one-time attorney Jim Trusty thinks that the cross-examination of adult film star Stormy Daniels in the Manhattan hush money trial was handled with essentially the right approach — but, he admitted to CNN's Brianna Keilar, Trump's lawyers fumbled the bag in one key way that made the whole cross go "off kilter."

Daniels revealed a number of salacious details about her alleged affair with Trump. The former president, for his part, was audibly cursing through certain points of the testimony, which prompted Judge Juan Merchan to order defense attorney Todd Blanche to control the client.

"I do want to ask you that if you were still Trump's lawyer, if there was anything different that you would have done on cross-examination of Stormy Daniels," said Keilar. "I asked specifically because there were a lot of questions about whether [attorney] Susan Necheles went overboard on cross the second day with Stormy Daniels because Trump may have wanted her to. What would you have done if you had a client demanding you do something you don't think it's the best strategy?"

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"Well, you've got to stick to your guns and get a good apology later rather than permission on the front end," said Trusty. "But look here, here's the bottom line. I think that the overall strategy for the defense has made sense, and she and Stormy became the flash of the strategy. And I'll explain in a second basically, make it all about Michael Cohen through all of your cross-examinations, you want to get and you want to get out. You want concessions. You don't want it to seem like it's a big battle because none of this other stuff is really hurting you. It's not really the primary focus of the case. The more you make this trial a referendum on the credibility of failed cooperator, perjurer, hateful Michael Cohen, the better you have a chance as defense."

That said, Trusty added, "Stormy created a problem because I think they started off that way thinking they're not going to dignify her too much. You're not going to cross too much on that first day ... And so they sat back, they didn't object a whole lot. She got in some gratuitous stuff and that opened the door where they felt they had to start going out with guns blazing, which opened another door on redirect for her to say more scurrilous stuff. So the strategy kinda got off kilter a little bit this week by, again, dignifying her as a witness a little too much."

"But I'll say this," continued Trusty. "I mean, she's a little bit of a target rich environment when you're cross-examining a witness about how they they made money talking to dead people. You got stuff to play with. It might resonate with the New York jury. I just think it was a little long, but not crazy long ... now it's the calm before the storm. When we get to Monday, it's a whole new trial."

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Jim Trusty admits Trump defense got "off kilter" in Stormy Daniels testimony youtu.be