Donald Trump's Defense Stuck With 'Terrible Strategy'—Attorney

Donald Trump's legal team are stuck with a "terrible" legal strategy during the hush money trial as they cannot suggest the former president committed any wrongdoing even if it's not a crime, a legal expert has said.

Harry Litman, an attorney and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General, claimed that the former president could be hindering himself as his lawyers cannot paint him in any negative way, and that includes their handling of allegations of affairs with adult film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal.

"What it means is they're going to have to say he never had an affair with McDougal, he never slept with Stormy. It's one thing for him to deflect and deny, but there are 12 people there who are judging his credibility," said Litman.

He made the remarks ahead of Trump's trial resuming in New York on Tuesday. The presumed Republican presidential candidate has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records in relation to money allegedly paid to Daniels in the run-up to the 2016 election to keep secret her claimed affair with Trump. He denies affairs with Daniels and McDougal.

Speaking to MSNBC's The Reid Out, Litman referred to infamous mob lawyer Roy Cohn, who previously represented Trump and acted as a mentor to him in the 1970s and 80s, when noting how the former president may be stretching the jury's credulity by denying everything.

"Even when a mob boss is under indictment and goes to see Roy Cohn, Roy Cohn says, 'All right, shut up and listen to me now, I know what needs to happen. We're going to go there and say maybe you haven't lived an exemplary life, but this charge and that charge,' they can't do that with Trump," Litman said.

"Can everyone be lying here? Imagine the cross examination they're going to have to do on Stormy Daniels," Litman added. "They're just going to have to call her a flaming liar...It's a terrible strategy."

Trump's legal team has been contacted for comment via email.

Litman made remarks in the wake of the previous week's court testimony from former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, who told the jury how he worked with Trump to help suppress negative stories about the Republican to boost his 2016 Election chances.

Litman suggested that Trump's lawyers were unable to paint the former president as being "a little sleazy, he cuts corners, but he's not a criminal," and resorted to suggesting Pecker was a "liar" instead during cross examination.

"This guy is not a liar," Litman told MSNBC. "He's a very interesting figure, he's a scoundrel of some sort, but he's not a liar, and they're just trying to sort of poke any hole they can find, but they're not doing it thematically."