Trump is about to adopt a 'risky defense' at criminal trial: former Manhattan prosecutor

Former President Donald Trump is going to employ a new "risky" defense strategy at his Manhattan criminal hush money trial, former Manhattan prosecutor Rebecca Roiphe argued to MSNBC's Chris Hayes on Wednesday evening.

Specifically, she argued, the former president is going to not deny the payment brokered by his former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen happened, but that there wasn't anything illegal about it in the first place.

"We think we're going to get a few more witnesses this week," said Hayes. "What are you sort of looking for in terms of where the case goes next?"

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"I'm very interested in how the defense lines up," said Roiphe. "So are they going to put all of their eggs in the basket of, you know, this is all fine, everything he did, he did and it's fine, or are they going to try to distance him from the things that Michael Cohen did."

"Say more about that, meaning that Cohen had gone rogue here," Hayes pressed her.

"Yes," she said. "This was the lawyer trying to freelance and hoping that he was going to get some great later payoff from Donald Trump, and this is why he did it. That's one possible defense. A lot of white-collar crime people are like, you know, it was my assistant doing it on her own. Like my secretary. So you know, he could go with that defense."

"Because generally in those cases, the principle has an agent that is committing it," said Hayes.

The trouble with that, Roiphe added, is that "I think he's made a lot of public statements that, in fact, he did this and there was nothing wrong with it. Those are all admissible. I think they are going to go with, there is nothing wrong with this. That's a risky defense."

Watch the video below or at the link here.

Rebecca Roiphe outlines Trump's "risky" trial defense strategy youtu.be