'Credibility issues': Judge says prosecutors can question Trump on past legal cases if he testifies

A critical ruling today coming from Judge Juan Merón, even before this morning's opening statements, is that if Donald Trump

testifies

,

prosecutors

can ask him about different conclusions in four previous court

cases

, including the defamation verdicts of Egene Carol and his agreement to dissolve the Trump Foundation. is Jeremy Saland, a criminal defense attorney and former assistant district attorney in the trial division of the Manhattan district attorney's office. Thank you very much, please, it's good to see, so let's talk about which

judge

Meren, in a way divided, said that the sexual finding of in the in the sex case cannot be held again, cannot be presented, but rather you may be asked about defamation, so he separated it between the financial

issues

and these were all civil

cases

, not criminal, and it's a different burden of proof.

There has to be beyond a reasonable doubt that that is absolutely true and there is a balance here, there is a prejudicial value and then there is another bias value as well and you want to understand how this affects your

credibility

in a very limited circumstance that allows this. The ruling

says

that these previous immoral uh criminals even use the term bad vicious acts since the law

says

well, they are not criminals, they were, but I am talking about the law that allows correction, so it allows certain types of cases and certain types of past history should be admitted solely for

credibility

purposes, so an accusation and even confirmation in a civil proceeding of some type of sexual abuse that you are right is a lower standard, but when you have credibility

issues

about being told.

I don't want to say something, for example, about the court clerk, but you publish something and you don't delete it. That would be a finding if you're a Trump organization, if there are issues with book-cooking or tax issues, that would be something that goes to your credibility, so it goes directly to veracity and veracity, but there's a balance because you can't be too biased and hurt him and we were talking right before you were talking about the fact that his lawyers shouldn't allow him to talk about anything in front of the jury, not in front of the jury leaving the court, because anything he says can be used to

question

your truthfulness, your absolute truthfulness or the truthfulness of your case if you don't testify and not only that, not only your truthfulness if you say something inconsistent that you previously said or that is something that is in the evidence in the case in Chief, it is I mean, the prosecution's actual case, they could potentially lay that foundation and when and if he

testifies

, they make him angry about it, so, it's foolish, it's naive.

When we talk about the big picture here, Donald Trump is playing politics outside of the presidency, but if he holds back in the courtroom or outside the courtroom by saying things that the prosecution can use against him, he will find himself pigeonholed I'm just giving you an example from today. He came out and said this was just accounting, just accounting. He was just paying my lawyers. They are accusing me only for accounting. Never before in American history has this happened to anyone. Just false, maybe the former president of the United States, but I, you know, I was a prosecutor, but now I'm a defense attorney, if that defense works, it was just accounting.

I would use it every time and you know, twice on Tuesdays, so it's really a ridiculous statement. ridiculous statement when something like that goes from being false and I think that's correct for many of these jurors, they know what the accusations against Donald Trump have been, they know some of the things that he said unless, for example, they are election deniers and believe that Joe Biden is not the legitimate president of the United States, that kind of thing is there, where could you get in trouble with what kind of statements, although well, there are different kinds of problems that one could have. being in trouble for violating the gag order, where if you start going after Michael Cohen or another witness beyond the scope actually allowed and attacking them personally, going after the

judge

, there's the gag, the ability is very limited on what can or can't can say. since it involves these Witnesses and people like the judge and the prosecutor, then there is that issue that could potentially be a fine and contempt and, in theory, imprisonment, although it is not likely.

Then, on the other side of that, is what we said before about the credibility of him and what he says. potentially on the stand if he testifies, although I think he is bragging a lot. I wonder if he'll actually do it, so there are two kinds of dangers for him, it's always the prosecution's burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, but he's giving them a bit of a balloon when he talks and runs, runs for his mouth and his lawyer should grab him by the neck and pull him back maybe they can't you know maybe they can and I've certainly had clients and I've seen as prosecutor Defendants do this and I understand it's the former president but maybe can see the forest from the trees and one of your roles or jobs as a lawyer is not only to protect him in that courtroom, but to silence him and protect him outside of that courtroom because if he says the wrong things, he will not become president of the United States in the future, very interesting, Jeremy, thank you very much for coming, we really appreciate it.

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