Todd Blanche, the attorney who led Donald Trump’s hush money defense, said the former president was “concentrating” when he sat at length with his eyes shut in court.
“He was not sleeping, and I think eventually the press realized he wasn’t sleeping,” Blanche said during a recent appearance on the “For the Defense with David Oscar Markus” podcast.
“His eyes would be closed, but he would be concentrating,” continued Blanche, in a clip of the podcast exchange flagged by the MeidasTouch network. “And I know that to be true, because he would write me a note and make it clear that he heard what was happening.”
“Listen, sitting in court all day is really freaking boring, even if you’re the defendant,” he said, adding that Trump “would close his eyes to relax, but I never, we never had to wake him up.”
Numerous journalists and others present in the courtroom during the trial reported that Trump appeared to be asleep, sometimes for long stints of the proceedings.
After attending court on May 14, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell said that Trump’s eyes had been shut for almost 90% of the day.
Trump’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, told MeidasTouch Trump’s eyes were closed “at least 95% of the time” during his many hours of testimony.
On the first day of Trump’s trial, April 15, the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman reported that Blanche passed Trump notes for “several minutes before Mr. Trump appeared to jolt awake and notice them.”
Trump and his allies have insisted he was awake. Trump has said he was just closing his eyes to “take it all in,” and that it was “very bright” in the courtroom.
His supporters have been more creative with their excuses. Fox News’ Jesse Watters, for example, claimed Trump was in a “meditative state.”
Jurors concluded last week that Trump was guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection to a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.