Donald Trump appears to be going for a senility defense
As it becomes more clear for all to see that Donald Trump will end up being criminally charged and face a prison sentence when this is all said and done, the question has been whether he realizes it. He has a famously tenuous grasp on reality, but there are times when he truly seems to understand how much trouble he’s in. In fact he’s increasingly starting to sound like he’s trying to set up a senility or mental incompetence defense.
While it’s far from his most serious criminal offense, one of the easiest crimes to convict Donald Trump for will be his recent witness intimidation tactics against Michael Cohen, which he committed in plain view. Even Trump’s jarringly inept criminal defense attorneys have likely explained this point to him. So it’s notable that even as he was recklessly running his mouth throughout his interview this week with the New York Times, the mere mention of the incident conveniently turned him into a, well, dotard.
Donald Trump has repeatedly tried to scare Michael Cohen out of testifying against him by publicly calling for Cohen’s father-in-law to be criminally investigated. This is cut-and-dry felony witness tampering. When the NY Times asked him about it, Trump initially insisted it wasn’t: “It’s not witness tampering. It’s not witness tampering at all. It’s not witness tampering.” When that didn’t work, he suddenly decided that his memory had failed him about the entire incident: “What did I say? I don’t know. What did I say?”
You can almost picture Donald Trump sitting on the witness stand during his criminal trial, being asked about his witness tampering, and responding by insisting he couldn’t even remember his own words. Trump is clearly in cognitive decline, but he’s not this senile, is he? This is an act, right? Either way, because the evidence against him is clear, his senility routine won’t get him off the legal hook; it might simply result in his prison sentence taking place at a different kind of facility.
