'I would have given her an F': Trump lawyer's 'rookie mistake' singled out by expert

On Friday morning Donald Trump lawyer Susan Necheles was raked over the coals by two former prosecutors who felt she flubbed her cross-examination of adult film star Stormy Daniels in a Manhattan courtroom on Thursday.

Appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), who served as a prosecutor before moving on to politics, and ex-Assistant United States Attorney Andrew Weissmann claimed the former president's lawyer went down a road she didn't need to follow and it came back to bite her before the jury.

According to the acerbic McCaskill, Necheles' intense and repetitive cross-examination graded out as an "F."

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"I read most of the cross last night because I was curious, and I know I've heard you speak that this particular criminal defense lawyer is very experienced and knowing what she was doing," McCaskill began as she addressed Weissmann, "But I was shocked that she went on for seven pages about whether or not they had dinner."

"Normally a courtroom lawyer, they get the sense they're losing the jury: that they are banging on a door that's never going to open and all they're doing is irritating people," she continued. "It seemed like to me that she was doing that and I can't figure out if she thought it was effective or if she was required to do it by her client."

"I thought in huge swaths of the cross-examination, I would have given her an F if I was grading moot court," she elaborated. "Especially some of the questions where she knew what the answer was going to be. Like 'You made this up, didn't you?' That's a rookie mistake! Why would you ask that when you know the answer is going to be a definitive no? I don't get it. "

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