It would seem that Trump is coaching his lawyers to make presentations like they're on TV - like it doesn't really matter what you say as long as you look good saying it, and that what you say makes Trump look good.
Habba is very good at the PR-kinda "law, where she makes assertions in declarative terms and in a way that (I guess) is supposed to evoke a favorable response(?)
And that's right up Trump's alley. He lives in a fantasy world where he can just speak his desires into existence, and he expects his lawyers to follow his lead.
(paraphrasing)
"Just say what I tell you to say, and let my Social Media Ratfuckers do the rest."
In their respective opening statements, the attorney general’s office and lawyers for Donald J. Trump spoke past each other: While the attorney general’s lawyer focused on the specific mechanics by which properties were valued — and why — Mr. Trump’s lawyers continued to argue that, overall, there had been nothing wrong with the former president’s financial statements.
Kevin Wallace, a lawyer for the attorney general’s office, told the courtroom that employees of Mr. Trump had reverse-engineered the value of individual assets — properties like Trump Tower and 40 Wall Street — to arrive at the former president’s desired net worth. He played a clip of Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former fixer, explaining the process, prompting the former president to cross his arms and shake his head, scowling.
But Christopher M. Kise, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, responded in his opening that there was no objective value of the assets and that differing valuations were standard in real estate.
“There was no nefarious intent, it simply reflects the change in a complex, sophisticated real estate development corporation,” he said of the way Mr. Trump’s company represented the assets’ value.
Though Mr. Trump’s lawyers began their opening arguments with a dry presentation, the tenor of the trial changed after a lawyer for Mr. Trump, Alina Habba, gave what she said was an extemporaneous presentation in which she attacked Ms. James as politically motivated and again declared that her client’s business partners had made money from the deals. Mr. Trump watched intently, occasionally nodding in agreement.
That kicked off a sequence in which Justice Arthur F. Engoron went back and forth with Ms. Habba and the other defense lawyers, Mr. Kise and Clifford S. Robert, correcting what he thought were legal errors from their presentations.
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