Donald Trump’s attorneys resort to laughable reasonable doubt defense as they give away that they think he’ll be convicted
Whenever a political figure is wrapped up in a potential criminal scandal, they start off by trying to win in the court of public opinion. They’re hoping they can just spin the whole thing as a frame job or a hit job, and that they’re totally innocent. But then there comes a point where they realize they’re likely to be indicted and stand trial, and they instead start shifting toward a reasonable doubt defense.
This always stands out as being awkward, because reasonable doubt defenses aren’t meant to sound believable. They often consist of an absurd alternate explanation of events, in the hope the jury will conclude there’s perhaps 1% chance that it might somehow be true. Of course these kinds of absurd explanations tend to ring so false, it makes the person sound very guilty in the court of public opinion. But when you’re just trying to figure out how to get acquitted at trial, you’re way past the point of caring about appearances.
That’s where Donald Trump now is. One of his lawyers just went on CNN and made the claim that Trump only had an empty classified documents folder in his bedroom because he was using it to block some lights that were keeping him up at night. No really, this happened:
Trump lawyer says Trump was using a classified folder to block the light on a phone near his bed that keeps him up at night? pic.twitter.com/vWK5VPmaAJ
— Acyn (@Acyn) February 12, 2023
Again, these kinds of absurd reasonable doubt arguments tend to make you look very guilty in the eyes of the public. But Trump and his team can’t help that now. He’s going to be indicted under the Espionage Act, he’s going to be on criminal trial for it, the evidence against him is overwhelming, and his only potential strategy is to try to mount a reasonable doubt defense.
But, as House Democrat Wiley Nickel sarcastically put it, “Who doesn’t use a classified folder to block the light on your bedside phone?” If this is the best attempt at a reasonable doubt defense that Trump’s attorneys have been able to come up with, then it’s clear that they expect he’ll be convicted. They’re just throwing anything at the wall that they can, so they can give Trump the impression that they’re still fighting for him. But this is just so obviously a lost cause. Trump is going to prison, and even his own people know it.
