Questions raised about Trump attorney Blanche taking a 'backseat' as trial progressed

Following the second week of Donald Trump's hush money trial in a Manhattan courtroom, MSNBC host Katie Phang noted that Donald Trump's primary lawyer, Todd Blanche, in the hush money trial seems to have withdrawn from scrutiny as the trial has progressed from jury selection to cross-examining the prosecution's witnesses.

Phang, a former prosecutor herself, pressed the Guardian's Hugo Lowell, who has been present in the courtroom to explain what is going on with the former president's defense strategy.

"Hugo, let's talk about what I say is the chess pieces of the lawyers at Trump's table for our viewers that aren't there," she prompted. "You have a defense table with Trump sitting squarely in the middle with Emil Bove and Todd Blanche and with Susan Necheles sitting very far at the end of the table, which I read the body language very tellingly."

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"But we had a switch in the defense attorneys," she continued. "We had Blanche get up and deal with the law arguments and also get bench slapped by Judge Juan Merchan, but we also had Emil Bove get up to do the cross-examination of David Pecker. Do you expect that to be the case, Hugo, throughout the course of this trial? This kind of ping-pong of different lawyers getting up? Including Susan Necheles who got up for Rhona Graff, the longtime assistant for Donald Trump."

"I think so," he replied. "You know, both Emil Bove and Todd Blanche, both formerly in the U.S. Attorney's office, they have prosecution experience and I don't think it was unusual or surprising to see Emil Bove get up and do some of the cross-examination. I also don't think it was surprising to see Susan Necheles get up either because she is a very respected and very good lawyer in her own right."

"It's funny what you say about the body language — how the musical chairs happened around Trump" he continued, "The one thing I did take away from this week was how Todd's presence and the amount that Todd went before the judge and at the lectern was reduced as the week went on."

"But I wonder if that is, well, so, if you think about the timing, it was after he did opening statements, objections sustained during his opening statements, that wasn't a great look in front of Trump when he was trying to defend the indefensible because Trump quite clearly appears to have violated the gag order, when he got bench slapped by Judge Juan Merchan in the contempt hearing," he elaborated. "Since then, Todd Blanche has taken a backseat. I wonder if part of that is because he wants to reduce the visibility that he has in front of the judge and continually losing things in front of the judge in front of Trump because Trump and Todd have this close relationship."

"If you see them in the Southern District of Florida, in the [Florida] documents case, they are always laughing and joking and passing notes between each other — that was reduced as the week went on," he observed.

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