There’s a nascent courtroom strategy by some people close to Donald Trump: Heap blame on the former president.
The finger-pointing among Donald Trump’s inner circle has begun.
And as his four criminal cases march toward trials, some of his aides, allies and co-defendants are pointing at the former president.
In court documents and hearings, lawyers for people in Trump’s orbit — both high-level advisers and lesser known associates — are starting to reveal glimmers of a tried-and-true strategy in cases with many defendants: Portray yourself as a hapless pawn while piling blame on the apparent kingpin.
“History has shown the 18 co-defendants that Donald doesn’t care about anyone but himself,” said Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, referring to the 18 people charged alongside Trump in the Georgia election racketeering case.
“I suspect it will be every defendant for himself,” Cohen added.
He should know: He was once Trump’s versatile fixer but is now a star witness against him in the New York criminal case stemming from hush money payments to a porn star.
Cohen broke with Trump years ago. But in recent weeks, Trump allies who are facing or could have faced jeopardy in connection with three of his four pending criminal cases have shown that they might follow Cohen’s lead.
In late August, an information technology aide at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort dramatically changed his story about alleged efforts to erase surveillance video and agreed to cooperate with special counsel Jack Smith, who has charged Trump with hoarding classified documents. The aide, Yuscil Taveras, was not charged in the case, but his flip may help him dodge a possible perjury charge prosecutors were floating — and it is likely to bolster Smith’s obstruction-of-justice case against Trump and two other aides.
Then, three GOP activists who were indicted alongside Trump in Georgia for trying to interfere with the certification of President Joe Biden’s win in the state asserted that their actions were all taken at Trump’s behest.
And last week, Trump’s former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows — also charged in the Georgia case — signaled that his defense is likely to include blaming the former president as the primary driver of the effort.
It’s not uncommon for co-defendants facing serious prison time to point fingers at each other to make themselves look less culpable to an eventual jury. But rarely has it played out in such an extraordinary fashion, where the alleged ringleader is a former president.
During a hearing in Atlanta, a defense attorney for Meadows called attention to Trump’s prominent role in what is certain to be a crucial element of prosecutors’ case there: the infamous Jan. 2, 2021, phone call in which Trump demanded that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, “find” enough votes to declare Trump the winner.
Meadows arranged that pivotal call. But after prosecutors played audio of the call in the courtroom, an attorney for Meadows emphasized that his client’s part in the actual discussion was both more minor and less provocative than Trump’s.
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“Strategically speaking, if you are one of the lesser important players, you would definitely want to be in the same trial with Donald Trump. All of the focus is going to be on him,” said Scott Weinberg, a Florida-based attorney who represented one of the Oath Keepers in a high-profile trial stemming from the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. “They don’t want the little guys, they want Trump. You’re always compared to who you’re next to.”
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That could be a particularly significant phenomenon and incentive for those charged alongside Trump in Georgia. Three of them — David Shafer, Cathleen Latham and Shawn Still — recently said in court filings that nearly all of the charges they face were the result of instructions from Trump and his lawyers.
The three GOP activists all posed as pro-Trump presidential electors, signing documents claiming they were Georgia’s legitimate electors even though Biden won the state. In legal filings seeking to transfer their prosecutions into federal court, they all indicated that they took that step at Trump’s “direction.”
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Meadows made clear in his own testimony at last week’s hearing that Trump viewed the false electors as a significant part of his strategy to remain in power. He said he sent an email pushing the campaign to assemble those slates because he feared a tongue-lashing from Trump.
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Trump’s co-defendants are already starting to turn against him https://t.co/UFc9Gv7a6o
— POLITICO (@politico) September 5, 2023
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