This is just embarrassing for Donald Trump’s criminal trial attorneys

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Yesterday I admitted that I had no idea who the next witness for the prosecution would be in Donald Trump’s criminal trial. It’s easy to come up with a list of likely witnesses. But Alvin Bragg and his team have kept a tight lid on who’s going to be testifying when.

Sure enough, prosecutors ended up calling Trump Organization Controller Jeff McConney to the stand today, in order to help confirm the money trail involved in Donald Trump’s reimbursement of Michael Cohen’s payoff to Stormy Daniels. It was a bit of a surprise to see McConney’s name called, given that we haven’t heard it in some time. But it wasn’t really a surprise, given that McConney has already testified in multiple Trump trials.

Here’s the funny part, though. When McConney was called to the stand, Trump’s defense attorneys claimed they weren’t prepared for the witness, and requested a delay. The judge denied this request, pointing out that prosecutors included McConney in discovery, so the defense should have been ready for it.

It’s not entirely clear if Trump’s defense attorneys actually failed to prepare for someone as obvious as Jeff McConney, or if this was just a desperate attempt at a stall tactic. But either way, it was just plain embarrassing, and it failed to work.

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