{"id":112663,"date":"2021-02-13T01:57:34","date_gmt":"2021-02-13T01:57:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/precoinnews.com\/?p=112663"},"modified":"2021-02-13T01:57:34","modified_gmt":"2021-02-13T01:57:34","slug":"for-the-defense-twisted-facts-and-other-staples-of-the-trump-playbook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/precoinnews.com\/politics\/for-the-defense-twisted-facts-and-other-staples-of-the-trump-playbook\/","title":{"rendered":"For the Defense: Twisted Facts and Other Staples of the Trump Playbook"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ever since Donald J. Trump began his run for president, he has been surrounded by an ever-shifting cast of lawyers with varying <\/span>abilities to control, channel and satisfy their mercurial and headstrong client.<\/p>\n

During the final weeks of the 2016 campaign, Michael D. Cohen arranged for hush money payments to be made to a former pornographic film actress. In the second year of Mr. Trump\u2019s presidency, John M. Dowd, the head of the team defending the president in the Russia investigation, quit after he concluded that Mr. Trump was refusing to listen to his counsel.<\/p>\n

By Mr. Trump\u2019s third year in office, he had found a new lawyer to do his bidding as Rudolph W. Giuliani first undertook a campaign to undermine Joseph R. Biden Jr. and then helped lead the fruitless effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election, with stops in Ukraine and at Four Seasons Total Landscaping along the way.<\/p>\n

On Friday, the latest members of Mr. Trump\u2019s legal cast took center stage in his impeachment trial and for the most part delivered exactly what he always seems to want from his lawyers: not precise, learned legal arguments but public combat, in this case including twisted facts, rewritten history and attacks on opponents.<\/p>\n

Despite an often unorthodox and undisciplined approach from his legal teams, Mr. Trump has survived more legal challenges as president than any of his recent predecessors. Although federal investigators uncovering the hush money payments and significant evidence he may have obstructed the Russia investigation, he was never charged. He was acquitted by the Senate in his first impeachment trial related to the Ukraine pressure campaign, and he appeared poised on Friday to see a similar outcome in this impeachment.<\/p>\n

Legal experts, white-collar defense lawyers and even some of Mr. Trump\u2019s former lawyers acknowledge that his survival has largely been a function of the fact that he is the president of the United States, a position that has given him great powers to evade legal consequence.<\/p>\n

The Trump Impeachment \u203a<\/h3>\n

What You Need to Know<\/h4>\n