Donald J. Trump is a thrice-married man accused of covering up a sex scandal with a porn star after the world heard him brag about grabbing women by their genitals.
But when Mr. Trump’s lawyers introduced him to a jury at his Manhattan criminal trial this week, they dwelt on a different dimension: “He’s a husband. He’s a father. And he’s a person, just like you and just like me.”
That half-hour opening statement encapsulated the former president’s influence over his lawyers and their strategy. It reflected specific input from Mr. Trump, people with knowledge of the matter said, and it echoed his absolutist approach to his first criminal trial.
And while defendants often offer feedback to their lawyers, this particular hands-on client could hamstring them.
Others might concede personal failings so their lawyers can focus solely on holes in the prosecution’s evidence — on television, it’s often a version of “My client might not be a nice guy, but he’s no criminal.”
But that time-honored tactic is not available to a defendant who is also the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, a man who despises weakness and is allergic to anything but praise from the people around him. So Mr. Trump’s legal strategy mirrors his political talking points as his lawyers portray the case as an unjust assault on the former president’s character.
Since he was indicted in Manhattan, Mr. Trump has questioned the very notion that anything untoward occurred, deploying a mantra: “no crime.” His lead lawyer, Todd Blanche, followed that blueprint in his opening statement, asking jurors, “What on earth is a crime?” and sprinkling in other Trump-esque phrases, including that the former president had “built a very large, successful company.”
People in Mr. Trump’s legal orbit have privately observed that the effort to humanize him might be a tough sell to a jury in New York, his hometown, where his presidency was wildly unpopular and his sexual dalliances were gossip-page staples.
But as the trial grinds on in the weeks ahead, legal experts said, the defense team will need to walk a fine line to appease both of its audiences: 12 jurors and a singular defendant.
“Trying the case to your client’s vanity, rather than to the jury, is a losing game,” said J. Bruce Maffeo, a former federal prosecutor.
Despite their client’s whims and wishes, Mr. Trump’s lawyers have deployed some conventional tactics to poke holes in the prosecution’s core accusation — that he falsified records to conceal a hush-money payment to the porn star, Stormy Daniels. And the lawyers, known as skilled litigators, some former prosecutors themselves, appear to have scored points.
Mr. Blanche, the lawyer who delivered the opening statement, urged the jury to “use common sense,” arguing that Mr. Trump is accused of falsifying the sort of back-office paperwork that a president would never bother touching. He also noted that the prosecution’s star witness is a felon and an “admitted liar.” And Mr. Blanche’s colleague, Emil Bove, grilled the prosecution’s first witness on Friday, pointing out a potential inconsistency in his story.
Such traditional techniques can be effective without undercutting Mr. Trump’s self-image. Roland G. Riopelle, another former prosecutor, who spent three decades as a defense lawyer, noted that “part of being a lawyer and being in a service business is pleasing the client — and I’m sure this client is difficult to please.”
Mr. Trump is known to be mercurial and prone to outbursts. In private, he has dressed down lawyers in several of his cases, even questioning their entire strategy just minutes before they were set to appear in court, people who have seen him in action say.
And inside the courtroom at two recent civil trials, he badgered lawyers, directing them to object at inopportune moments, muttering grievances into their ears and twice storming away from the defense table. Once,…
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