Donald Trump’s niece says he’s “short-circuiting” from having no control during his trial

As Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York continues, the former president’s out niece, Mary Trump, says his “psyche” has begun “to fray at the edges.”

“No doubt Donald feels as though he’s being singled out for extraordinary punishment, but that’s because he has so rarely been in a situation in which he has no control over either the narrative or the proceedings,” Mary wrote on her blog. “Because this is a criminal trial, he will have virtually no say about anything that happens inside that courtroom and, indeed, over anything that happens to him if he steps outside the lines that Judge Merchan draws.”

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Trump reportedly fell asleep during the first day of his hush money trial

“If Trump is too old and weak to stay awake at his own criminal trial, what do you think will happen in the Situation Room?”

Mary said that when her uncle “feels like the walls are closing in on him,” he “freaks out” and “acts out.” He has so rarely been out of control, she explained, that he is “totally unprepared” for what’s happening to him now.

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“At a rally or at a press conference, he controls the room… In the courtroom, however, Donald can’t speak out of turn — he will be subject to the judge’s rules. And a lot of people are going to see certain traits, like his thuggishness, his temper, his sense of grievance, that may play well to some in certain settings, but that in this setting will come across very differently. He will be seen to be rude, weak, and incapable of controlling himself when bound by the same rules to which the rest of us must conform.”

She continued, “Even after one day, it was clear Donald wasn’t faring well. He’s experiencing serious psychological trauma. The narcissistic wound that he’s suffering right now is basically short-circuiting him.”

Mary also pointed out that no one from Trump’s family is attending the trial, which she said “underscores what an isolated figure” he is.

“He surrounds himself with sycophants, he gives rallies that thousands attend, when he descends to the Mar-a-Lago dining room, club members give him a standing ovation. But he is, in the grand scheme of things, utterly alone.”

She said it is “bizarre” that he has no support outside his legal team, something that “says a lot about his inability to inspire loyalty even among those who should care about him the most.”

“Even though he clearly has serious untreated psychological disorders,” she added, “there is not one person in his family who is willing to do anything to get him help.”

Mary also pointed out that, on some level, it is absurd for the country to focus so much on one man with so much happening in the world, but she acknowledged that “the reality is, the future of the country is, to a significant degree, tied to the future of Donald Trump.”

The Trump hush money trial explained

Trump and the Trump Organization are accused of hiding its hush money payments, made in 2016 and 2017, to silence potentially unflattering stories about Trump during the 2016 election. Trump and his organization allegedly misrepresented these payments to hide their breaking of federal campaign finance laws.

While falsifying business records is typically a misdemeanor offense in New York state law, if Trump did so to cover up campaign finance violations, that’s a federal crime. Because the falsification occurred to hide another crime, prosecutors upgraded the state charges from misdemeanors to felonies.

Court documents allege that Trump and his organization paid $130,000 to adult video actress Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about their alleged extramarital affair while Trump was married to his current wife, now-former first lady Melania Trump. Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen established a shell company — Resolution Consultants, LLC — to make the Daniels payment seem unconnected to Trump.

Trump allegedly organized two other hush money payments through American Media, Inc. (AMI), the company that owns The National Enquirer and other publications. AMI paid $125,000 to Playboy model Karen McDougal to keep her from alleging her own extramarital affair with Trump.

AMI also paid $30,000 to stop an unnamed Trump Tower doorman from claiming he had proof about a child Trump had out of wedlock. AMI “later concluded that the [doorman’s] story was not true,” but it still paid him to stay silent until after the election, court documents allege. AMI also allegedly misrepresented its payment to McDougal on its company ledgers.

AMI paid McDougal and the doorman money to “not publicize damaging allegations” against Trump in order to “influence” the 2016 election, court documents state — a media legal arrangement sometimes referred to as “capture and kill.”

After winning the 2016 election, Trump allegedly met AMI CEO David Pecker inside Trump Tower in Manhattan to invite him to the inauguration and a White House dinner as thanks for his silencing of McDougal’s and the doorman’s stories.

To repay Cohen for handling Daniels’s payment, Trump and the Trump Organization’s then-CFO Allen Weisselberg allegedly asked Cohen to submit a $35,000 invoice each month throughout 2017 as part of a “retainer agreement” and for “legal services rendered.”

“In fact, there was no such retainer agreement and [Cohen] was not being paid for services rendered in any month of 2017,” the court documents state. Rather, Cohen’s invoices were just reimbursements for the $130,000 he paid to Daniels and an additional $290,000 to reward Cohen for his work, court documents allege.

Trump allegedly signed off on each check from the Trump Organization to Cohen. Each check counts as a falsified business record, prosecutors say. In August 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to violating federal campaign finance by mischaracterizing the Trump Organization’s payments. Cohen’s admission, prosecutors say, means that Trump essentially falsified business records to help his lawyer violate federal campaign finance law.