Trump defense rests, Trump will not testify!

Thank god they talked the Donald out of getting on the stand. The judge made it almost impossible for him to testify, and it would appear that Trump listened to attorneys.

Everyone assumed Trump would want to testify and many believed that he would. It was said that the prosecution went to great lengths in preparing for the Trump testimony and some believe that getting him on the stand was largely the point of this. Perhaps they thought they could get from Trump what they could not get out of any other witness. Proof that he was involved in the bookkeeping.

Maybe they were even expecting a Few Good Men confession out of Donald Trump. They would egg him on, questioning his man-hood, and telling him that they could not believe he was such a chump, and that he would eventually get mad and demand that he ordered the code red. Did I tell Michael Cohen to steal $60,000 from me and then invoice us for ongoing services in 2017? You're Goddamn Right I did!

Either way, the defense called exactly one witness. The only witness that seemed not to be a liar, a thief, a porn-star, or irrelevant. Perhaps he was even a bit irrelevant as the judge apparently did not allow him to put two words together without sustaining an objection. It came to the point where the judge accused Costello of "staring him down". But at the very least it exposed the judge as even being more of a hack as he cleared the courtroom assumingly to chastise Costello. Keep in mind that Costello is a 30 year fixture in the New York legal scene and considered a stand up guy who understands the law. If he was flabbergasted, it was probably for good reason. More to the point, it was made clear that the prosecution (and Merchan) feared his testimony.