‘Oops’: Ex-prosecutor identifies flaw in Trump’s ‘latest defense’ in criminal hush-money case

Donald Trump’s current defense against charges in the corporate data falsification case he faces undermines his original arguments, a legal expert said Sunday.

Trump will begin his trial in the case, in which the former president has been charged with more than 30 crimes in connection with so-called “hush money” payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels that were then allegedly covered up. Trump’s first argument was that the $130,000 paid to his former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, was for regular fees during the course of the representation.

Now, however, the ex-president is contradicting that claim, saying the fees were legal fees because they were reimbursements to Trump’s attorney, while acknowledging that they went to Daniel rather than for regular costs.

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Andrew Weissmann, former chief prosecutor for special counsel Robert Mueller, claims the current defense goes against what Trump wrote at the time of the actual transactions.

“Trump’s final defense, which we will undoubtedly see at trial, that the 34 corporate documents were not false because they were legal payments (reimbursing his lawyer Cohen for making the $130,000 hush money payment), is believed by contemporaneous notes that the payments were for ongoing legal services provided during a given month,” he wrote. “Oops.”