An attorney for a convicted crack dealer tried to co-opt a comment by President Trump in a last-ditch attempt to defend his client.
The judge wasn’t impressed. (Daily Wire)
During his closing arguments, the crack dealer’s lawyer began to cite Trump’s comment in a recent interview with Fox News about his former “fixer” Michael Cohen “flipping” on him.
“If somebody defrauded a bank and he’s gonna get 10 years in jail, or 20 years in jail, but you can say something bad about Donald Trump and you’ll go down to two years or three years, which is the deal [Cohen] made, in all fairness to him most people are going to do that,” Trump told “Fox & Friends” co-host Ainsley Earhardt. “It’s called flipping, and it almost ought to be illegal.”
Trump: Flipping should be illegal pic.twitter.com/qVFsOWHbkv
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) August 23, 2018
“You know what’s funny? Yesterday [Paul] Manafort was convicted,” attorney Kafahni Nkrumah said in his closing statement in defense of crack dealer Jamal (Mally) Russell, citing Manafort’s conviction, which included a cooperating witness.
Judge Gregory Woods stopped Nkrumah from finishing the thought, though the NY Daily News reports that “out of earshot of the jury” Nkrumah said he planned to quote Trump’s remark that “flipping” “almost ought to be illegal.'”
The judge curtly responded by saying that bringing the president into the equation was “politically charged” and unnecessary.