How Donald Trump Lost the Winnable Hush Money Trial: Analyzing His Lawyers’ Mistakes

Don­ald Trump faced crim­i­nal charges in a 2024 hush mon­ey law­suit. While he had a chance to win or reduce the charges, his bom­bas­tic legal strat­e­gy back­fired. Here’s an analy­sis of the two key mis­takes his defense team made.

The Overly Confusing Defense

Trump’s lawyers attempt­ed to deny every­thing and attack wit­ness­es like Stormy Daniels. How­ev­er, this approach con­fused the jury rather than pro­vid­ing a clear nar­ra­tive. They chal­lenged every small detail pros­e­cu­tors pre­sent­ed rather than focus­ing on weak­ness­es in their case.

Specif­i­cal­ly, they should have argued Cohen and Weis­sel­berg act­ed alone with­out Trump’s knowl­edge. They also spent too long inter­ro­gat­ing Cohen, allow­ing pros­e­cu­tors to back up his tes­ti­mo­ny with documentation.

Refusing a Lesser Plea

Trump’s “all-or-noth­ing” approach refused an instruc­tion let­ting jurors con­sid­er a mis­de­meanor charge. This did­n’t give jurors a com­pro­mise option, mak­ing con­vic­tions more likely.

Had they framed it as admit­ting the affair but dis­put­ing crim­i­nal intent, one juror may have caused a hung jury. Or they could have tak­en a mis­de­meanor over felonies.

In the end, Trump’s com­bat­ive style cost him by over­whelm­ing the jury rather than sim­pli­fy­ing weak­ness­es in the pros­e­cu­tion’s nar­ra­tive. His con­vic­tion upends the 2024 elec­tion and sets an unprece­dent­ed legal precedent.