TRUMP’S CASE - A VIEW FROM AN ENGLISH LEGAL PERSPECTIVE

I am not an American lawyer, but here are some thoughts from an English litigation perspective.

Trump is adept at what he calls (or his ghost writer called) ‘the art of the deal’ - that is a transactional approach based on exploiting leverage. It is only transactional to an extent, as he will also not fulfil a promise if that also suits him.

Such an approach is not unhelpful in pre-trial shenanigans, where it is one party dealing with another party. Pre-trial litigation is often deal-making by another name. But when a dispute gets to court (and most Trump-related litigation does not get to a courtroom) then such bilateral game-playing becomes far less important. A third party - the judge (and sometimes jury) takes power. Trump’s blustering and bargaining is not well suited for this. Bullying will now not be enough.

And there will also be another thing he now cannot control: evidence. And this evidence will feed into the media mainstream, with the added credibility of being on oath. For somebody who is a deft manipulator of the media and his public image this los of information control will also be painful for him.

I have no idea if Trump will be convicted. I suspect it will be hard to get a conviction.

But he is now a fish out of water, at least for a while.