A former lawyer for Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized the closing arguments made by current Trump defense attorney Todd Blanche in the former president’s hush money trial.
“It went way too long,” Tim Parlatore told CNN’s Jake Tapper of Blanche’s three-hour summation.
“It included way too much extraneous information and as much as he has probably bored the jury to tears,” added Parlatore, who represented the presumptive GOP nominee in his classified documents case but quit last year amid infighting on the team.
Trump is accused of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election. He allegedly sought to buy Daniels’ silence over an earlier alleged affair. Trump denies the claims.
Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, meanwhile, said on MNSBC that Blanche’s arguments contained some inconsistent arguments, some legitimate arguments and catchy lines.
“It was a real grab bag and I don’t mean that in a disparaging way,” he said. “The defense has an obligation to see if they can find at least one juror who can fight on any of the presentations so they are really offering an array of things.”
The defense didn’t manage, however, to make convincing arguments about why former Trump loyalists including Michael Cohen would have kept the scheme from Trump, which is a key claim from Trump, said Weissmann.