One item among many in today's news involves Trump's evolving defense strategy in his New York criminal fraud trial related to hush money payments in 20216. Any case in which a defendent will argue he acted on the advice of counsel requires a formal filing to the court at some pre-set interval before the trial begins. For Trump's hush money trial, that day was sometime this week so Trump and team filed a statement with the court that was classic Trump: He didn't explicitly claim an "advice of counsel" tact would be taken in his defense but he still stated he lacked the criminal intent required under the law because he was "aware numerous lawyers were involved."

So are you in or you out? You can't be both.

A defendent filing an "advice of counsel" notice to the court is essentially waiving their attorney/client privilege with those lawyers. This ensures any communication between the defendent and those lawyers can be examined by prosecutors to counter whatever argument the defense plans on making when the case goes in front of the jury. But of course, that's the LAST thing Trump wants to actually do because his lawyers WERE crooked and WERE acting on his orders or mutually planning the capture/kill scheme between AMI and Daniels with him and were mutually planning with him to bury the expense through compensation payments from The Trump Organization to its employee Michael Cohen rather than simply paying it out of Trump's personal wallet (which would have been legal).

Trump's non-sensical filing will not likely go over well with the judge but it's another sign of how desperate his legal maneuvers have become and how far away from legal norms he is attempting to roam in order to delay a reckoning.


WTH