MANHATTAN (CN) — The jury in Donald Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial hasn’t heard from the former president yet in court. And they might not get to at all; despite him claiming that he wants to testify, he’s been skittish to commit to getting on the stand.
But prosecutors are making sure jurors are hearing his words — mainly, those he wrote in his books, many of which are around two decades old.
“For many years I’ve said that if someone screws you, screw them back,” Trump wrote in his 2004 book “Trump: How to Get Rich,” displayed last week to the court. “When somebody hurts you, you just go after them as viciously and as violently as you can. Like it says in the Bible, an eye for an eye.”
Prosecutors hope Trump’s past words will paint him as a vindictive, stingy micromanager who would have never let a sweeping hush-money scheme to bury bad press during his 2016 presidential campaign be carried out by his subordinates without his knowledge.
Prosecutors are trying to prove that Trump falsified business records and illegally orchestrated the scheme that, while executed by those under him, was fully directed by Trump.
According to former federal prosecutor Justin Danilewitz, Trump’s books could be a way to accomplish that, even if they were written 20 years ago.
“Statements of a defendant are always admissible as the ‘admissions of a party opponent,’” Danilewitz told Courthouse News. “This is why the more writing a defendant has done, and the more prior statements a defendant has made — whether verbal or otherwise — the more evidence the prosecution has directly from the mind of the defendant. That can be powerful in a white collar criminal case, where the ‘state of mind’ of the defendant is an essential element of proof.”
Unfortunately for Trump, much of his past writing portrays the exact opposite of what his defense lawyers are trying to depict.
“Pay attention to the details,” Trump wrote in a section of “How to Get Rich.” “If you don’t know every aspect of what you’re doing, down to the paper clips, you’re setting yourself up for some unwelcome surprises.”
“As I said before, I always sign my checks, so I know where my money’s going,” Trump wrote in “Trump: Think Like a Billionaire,” published in 2004. “In the same spirit, I also always try to read my bills to make sure I’m not being overcharged.”
Witness testimony has directly refuted the argument that the supposed hush-money scheme is something that Trump merely let slip through the cracks while he was busy adjusting to his life in the White House in 2017.
“Everything required Mr. Trump’s signoff,” Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen testified earlier this week.
Other excerpts read to the jury dealt with Trump’s lust and views of women, which prosecutors say played a major role in his need to cover up sex scandals years later while running for president.
“All the women on The Apprentice flirted with me — consciously or unconsciously,” Trump wrote in “How to Get Rich.” “That’s to be expected. A sexual dynamic is always present between people, unless you are asexual.”
Whether or not jurors take Trump at his written word, the former president’s books have already come back to bite him.
Following the conclusion of adult film star Stormy Daniels’ testimony last week, Trump’s lawyers asked New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan to remove Trump’s gag order stipulation that prevents him from speaking publicly about Daniels.
“When you’re wronged, go after those people because it is a good feeling and because other people will see you doing it,” Trump wrote in an excerpt from his 2007 book “Think Big: Make It Happen in Business and Life.” “Getting even is not always a personal thing. It’s just part of doing business.”
Merchan cited that very excerpt, read aloud in court earlier that day, when he denied Trump’s motion.
The court has already attached considerable weight to Trump’s book excerpts. According to Jeffrey Evan Gold, criminal defense attorney at the New Jersey-based Helmer, Conley & Kasselman, the jury could, too.
Distinguishing Trump’s nonfiction writing from other art forms — such as rap lyrics, whose evidentiary legitimacy has been long debated in U.S. courts — Gold doesn’t see the truth of Trump’s writing as being up for debate in this case.
“He’s not lying,” Gold said. “He wasn’t making up a story. This wasn’t a fiction book. Like, a rap lyric is fiction.”
Gold also didn’t see the age of Trump’s books as being an issue. After all, Trump was already in his late 50s when “How to Get Rich” released in 2004, so Gold doesn’t believe it would be a winning argument to claim that Trump’s worldview or management style has drastically shifted since then.
“You could make a clear case that somebody tweeted something in college, and you should still hire them because they were in college, stupid, made a mistake,” Gold said. “But you can’t make that argument about a 50, 60-year-old guy writing a book.”
Trump’s lawyers have tried to distance their client from the books by suggesting that his “ghost writers” could have had a bigger impact on Trump’s books than previously thought. Prosecutors tried to dispel that argument during testimony from Sally Franklin, an executive at Penguin Random House.
“In your experience, do ghost writers ever write entire books without the author’s knowledge?” asked prosecutor Rebecca Mangold.
“No,” Franklin replied.
“In your experience, do ghost writers ever create content without any input from the author?” Mangold asked.
“No,” Franklin said.
Cohen is still on the witness stand as prosecutors look to wrap up their case, potentially as early as the end of this week. It remains unclear if Trump will testify. Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche told Merchan at a sidebar earlier this week that he still doesn’t know if he plans to call the former president as a defense witness.