“If Trump plans to use advice of counsel defense at trial in election interference case, he waives attorney-client privilege and must turn over documents to prosecution. He can’t have it both ways,”
“If Trump plans to use advice of counsel defense at trial in election interference case, he waives attorney-client privilege and must turn over documents to prosecution. He can’t have it both ways,”
This is the key paragraph, at least for me:
So if he’s going to blame his lawyers, the government can compel all of their communications in order to investigate whether he actually conspired with the lawyers to get the advice that his illegal act was actually legal. If he did (as seems likely), then he incriminates himself and his lawyers on additional conspiracy charges. If he didn’t, then he will have to own the decision.
This is something they’re going to fight tooth and nail against, so I’m curious as to what their next step is going to be.
My bet is that they will wait until the last possible moment, close of business on January 15th, and then declare they are using the advice-of-counsel defense. They will start filing motions and appeals claiming executive privileged and anything else they can think of to try and avoid turning anything over to the prosecution. When they finally loose all those appeals, they will decide to drop that defense and will assert attorney client privileged after all. In the end, they will delay the trial for months which is the whole intent. Delay, delay, delay, is the trademark Trump court strategy.