As prosecutors and lawyers for Donald Trump spar over the former president’s public statements, Trump the candidate keeps saying things that couldhurt Trump the defendant’s chances in court.
In the span of about six months, Trump has been charged in four separate indictments while simultaneously running for president. On the campaign trail, the former president has attacked the prosecutors, witnesses and alleged evidence against him in ways that seem to have only strengthened his wide lead atop the GOP field.
Some of Trump’s public statements have already gotten him in legal hot water, with a partial gag order issued in a civil business fraud trial that is underway in New York, and a hearing Monday on a broader possible gag order in Trump’s D.C. criminal case.
But the bombastic diatribes are also giving prosecutors new material that could be used at trial to prove elements of the criminal charges against the former president. If special counsel Jack Smith succeeds in his quest for a gag order on Trump, prosecutors could lose one of their best sources of incriminating information — Trump’s mouth.