The lead attorney defending former President Donald Trump in his criminal hush money trial risks prison himself by taking his problematic client's advice, a fellow lawyer warned Wednesday.
Attorney Mark Herrmann issued his warning to Trump lawyer Todd Blanche in a Daily Beast column that begins with a classic set-up/punchline joke.
"What do you call a lawyer who obeys Donald Trump’s advice?" Herrmann asks. The answer? "Felon."
Herrmann's advice arrives on the heels of a report that Blanche has become the "focus of Trump's wrath" over his perceived failure to tackle the hush money trial with adequate aggression in obeisance to the former president's orders.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts that he falsified business records to cover up hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election, as is contended by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
As the ongoing trial makes national headlines, Blanche and his tenuous relationship with Trump have been thrown into the spotlight.
"For Todd Blanche’s sake, I hope he sticks to his guns," Herrmann wrote. "Trump has led a consequence-free life. But lawyers—litigators, in particular — do not live consequence-free lives."
Lawyers who disobey the law and court orders face a plethora of consequences that can include losing a case, sanctions, loss of reputation and disbarment, Herrmann notes.
Nor, the lawyer explains, is the latter consequence unheard of among attorneys in Trump's orbit.
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"Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, and others in Trump’s penumbra, are all lawyers who acted as Trump desired — and have lost, or are at risk of losing, their licenses," Herrmann writes.
Hermann gives a hat-tip to Blanche, whom he describes as a "serious lawyer" correct in his decision not to pursue a courtroom campaign of unbridled aggression.
"Serious lawyers do not attack jurors,' he wrote. "That approach is both sure to make jurors resent you and probably get you referred to a bar association for disciplinary action."
The lawyer argues Trump will continue to blame Blanche for any courtroom mishaps that occur and therefore he should not risk his professional reputation trying to appease a demanding client.
"After all," he writes, "has Trump ever in his life blamed himself when something went wrong?"
Herrmann began his opinion piece with a joke, but ended it on a serious note with an old saying among criminal defense lawyers.
“Be sure that, at the end of the trial, your client is the one who goes to jail," Herrmann concludes. "But be sure that, at the end of the trial in New York, it’s Trump, and not you, who goes to jail."
