Trump: I’m not allowed to testify. I’m under a gag order pic.twitter.com/4qeH81ERWo
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 2, 2024
It's hard not to view Trump's latest lie--that being under a gag order means he can't testify in his hush money trial--as living down to Michael Cohen's charming nickname for him: "Von Shitzinpanz". One could very well assume he's chickening out, knowing full well that nothing he says will actually help him. But does his reluctance to testify mean he is, literally or figuratively, shitting his pants over it?
Although it's desperately unethical, I can imagine a world where exhausted lawyers just give Trump the impression that the gag order does so mean he can't testify because it's simpler than telling him he's a great big dotard and no competent lawyer would put him on the stand. Maybe his lack of campaign events (other than the two on Wednesday, where he navigated sentences in his mother tongue as if said tongue had come to a shocking fork) is also a tricky bit of advice--sure. The gag order. Because having most of one's campaign fundraising money go to legal fees means not holding as many events and certainly not for the purpose of screwing himself harder by yapping freely about why having suspected Democrats on the jury is jamming him up.
It's a dangling dagger, a sword of Damocles, a sharp set of scissors for a toddler to be running with--today, he gets fines, but it really could be jail if he keeps it up.
Of course, the claim that Trump can't testify because everything is rigged is of a piece with his other lies about the case: he's still trying to figure out what combination of words will bring out the cavalry.
But what if Trump's people would only be motivated by him finally getting his close-up?
And of course knocking them all dead by spitting righteous fire from the stand in the courtroom because that isn't either a thing that only happens in movies, right?
I mean--what has he got to lose? His dignity? This case? The White House?
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