'Devastating': Lawyer says 'losing' Trump team 'struck out badly' with risky witness
A criminal defense attorney who had been approached to defend Donald Trump concluded that the former president had a "devastating day" in court Monday.
During a Tuesday interview on CNN, attorney David Oscar Markus reflected on the anger of Justice Juan Merchan on Monday when defense witness Robert Costello was nearly found in contempt for taunting the judge.
"What a devastating day for the defense, right?" Markus said. "It should have been a positive day for the defense, ending with this terrible witness, Michael Cohen, and now it was just an awful day for the defense."
"And when a witness tells a prosecutor something like, speak into the mic, all the jurors ... are gonna side with the examiner, with the prosecution there, and not side with the witness," he continued. "So it's just terrible the way it went down."
Markus called the decision to put Costello on the stand "a big risk" and said the defense "struck out badly."
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"The jury sees that, and you saw them look at each other," he added. "That is really, really bad."
Markus noted that the defense team had to take risks if they felt they were losing the case.
"Now, this risk didn't pan out, but if you don't take risks as a defense lawyer in court, you will lose a hundred out of a hundred times," he remarked. "So, you know, they must have believed they were losing at the point that they called Costello, because otherwise you wouldn't call him, right?"
"If you believed you were winning the case, you rest at that point."