Too scared to speak in his own defence, but Trump powers on

DONALD Trump has complained nonstop for weeks about being gagged. The hush money trial, involving an alleged pay-off to porn star Stormy Daniels, has been monstrously unfair, he wailed repeatedly outside court.

- Sarah Baxter

According to his own version of events, his prosecution was a horrible witch hunt, built on lies, because America's self-described "favourite" president never slept with Daniels in the first place, let alone tried to subvert the course of the 2016 election by paying $130,000 for her silence.

So what did the bombastic Trump do when offered the chance to defend himself in court? He kept his mouth firmly zipped. In effect he gagged himself, despite vowing. "Yeah, I would testify, absolutely," at a press conference in Florida before the start of the trial. "I'm testifying. I tell the truth," he asserted, knowing full well he was unlikely to take the stand. "I mean, all I can do is tell the truth, and the truth is there is no case." The fact that his lawyers were terrified he would make an appalling witness did not make his decision to remain silent any less craven.

Was he afraid of perjuring himself? We can only speculate, but Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential candidate, hit a nerve when he said, "As far as I know you don't pay someone $130,000 not to have sex with you." Imagine how much more convincing Trump would have been to jurors had he felt able to look them in the eye and say calmly, "I never slept with Daniels.

I paid my lawyer Michael Cohen purely for legal services, and I only wanted to keep her sordid lies about sex from embarrassing my wife Melania." But he was never going to risk taking the stand.