Listen, if you want to understand what happened it is pretty simple, the prosecution had absolutely overwhelming evidence of Trump's guilt. It was slam dunk evidence that rarely is ever the kind of evidence a team of prosecutors are lucky enough to have. They even had Donald on tape directing the scheme. About the only thing more that could have gone in their favor in terms of evidence was Trump standing up in the courtroom and saying "I did it, I'm glad I did it, I would do it again!"
Which, in truth, he came close to doing in his press conferences in the hallway. You need to come to terms with how incredibly dumb this guy is, Marc.
Now, combine this with the defense coming into this trial completely empty handed, and then bungling what they did do. Todd Blanche was pretty much a disaster. Part of that was he was bullied by Trump to do and say certain things and he did what Trump wanted and put Robert Costello on the stand...GIANT MISTAKE of epic proportions. No intelligent lawyer would have ever put that clown on the stand...EVER. I will give Blanche the benefit of the doubt, that he likely did not want to put Costello on the stand but did so at the insistence of his idiotic client.
The entire defense was to say Michael Cohen is a liar so you should not believe anything he says. They combined this with attempting to claim that there was no way the jury could be positive that Trump knew anything about what Cohen and Weisselberg were doing and they, on their own, decided to pay Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal off. Blanche tried this even though there was ABSOLUTELY OVERWHELMING evidence Trump knew, participated, and oversaw the entire scheme.
Marc, they heard Trump on tape discussing the scheme with Cohen. They heard testimony from one of Trump's own financial guys, Jeff McConney, that Trump knew and signed off on the scheme. They heard from one of Trump's buddies, David Pecker who was helping Trump buy the silence of these women. They heard from Hope Hicks. They had evidence from California court of Trump signing off on the scheme.
If this were a murder case, Marc, it would have like 50 people being present while Trump committed the murder and all of them getting the entire killing on video. He was guilty as hell and again THEY HAD HIM ON TAPE.
If this had been Joe Biden in Trump's place you would have gone insane if he was not convicted. Why? Because it was Joe Biden but since this is Donald Trump you seem to be pretending there was no evidence or you listened to the clowns on FOX that have been lying their asses off about this trial.
Todd Blanche began the trial by telling an obvious lie to the jury, that everybody knew was a lie, but he did it because Trump told him to say it...that Trump never had sex with Stormy Daniels. There was no reason to tell that lie, everybody knew it was a lie, and when you are in a court in front of a jury and you start by telling them a massive lie, well, you have lost your case right there. The jury knew at that moment, that the defense strategy was to lie to them. It was uphill all the way after that, and the defense had nothing. No evidence to present, no witnesses to testify, their client was never getting on the stand because he would need to lie if he did, so you know, perjury.
All Blanche could do was beg the jury not to believe Cohen and try to sell to at least one member of the jury that Trump knew nothing about what Cohen and Weisselberg were up to. They came to a gunfight with a pillow.
