Jeffrey Toobin Suggests Trump Hurt Himself with Courthouse Rant: ‘That Video Could Be Played Before the Jury’

Former federal prosecutor Jeffrey Toobin said Donald Trump may have implicated himself during a post-court rant on Tuesday.

Jury selection in the ex-president’s criminal trial began on Monday and so far, seven jurors have been seated. Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments meant to prevent reporting on his extramarital affairs before the 2016 presidential election.

As he did the day before, Trump ranted to reporters on Tuesday after court adjourned.

“I was paying a lawyer and we marked it down as a legal expense — some accountant,” Trump stated, alluding to his former attorney Michael Cohen, who made the payments and was ultimately convicted and imprisoned for his role. “I didn’t know. Mark it down as a legal expense. That’s exactly what it was. And you get indicted over that?”

CNN’s Anderson Cooper aired the clip on AC360 and asked law professor Jessica Roth, “Is that incriminating?”

“That was an interesting statement,” she said. “I don’t think we should overstate how incriminating it was. His name– he signed some of the checks to Michael Cohen reimbursing him for these fees. When he started to say, I marked it down as legal expenses, my ears perked up because it’s been a little bit unclear exactly how the state is going to prove that Trump falsified the records because many of these entries may have been made by the accountants for the Trump Organization.”

Toobin concurred that Trump may claim his accountants were in charge of the bookkeeping and that any irregularities can be ascribed to them.

“That’s gonna be a big issue in the case,” he said. “How is the government gonna prove that Trump knew and initiated or at least supported the idea that these payoffs were recorded as legal fees? He said, ‘Mark them down.’ Now, as Jessica said, he sort of caught himself. But, you know, that that video could be played before the jury, no question.”

Watch above via CNN.