Attorney says Trump helped work on his own defense

The attorney representing former President Trump is his hush money trial said the presumptive GOP presidential nominee worked closely on his own defense strategy in the case, which ended Thursday with a guilty verdict on all 34 counts.

“It was both of us,” Todd Blanche told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, who asked who was in charge. “If there’s a lawyer that comes in and says that they’re in charge of their defense strategy, they’re not doing a service to their client.”

Blanche said they made the decisions as a team.

Collins questioned Blanche, because at times throughout the trial, Trump reportedly hit or tapped Blanche on the arm to communicate during proceedings.

“Every defendant, everybody who has their life on the line in history will tap their lawyer every once in a while and say ‘Hey, what about this? What about that?’” Blanche said.

Moments before the guilty verdict was read, Trump had been laughing with Blanche, but his mood quickly changed. He sat with his arms crossed, occasionally whispering with his lawyers as they awaited the arrival of the 12 jurors in the courtroom.

Blanche said he and the former president got along during the trial and were “on the same page about strategy.” The attorney said Trump’s behavior in court Thursday should leave people impressed.

“The one thing that I left with today is: He impressed, hopefully, everybody … that got to see what happened today,” he said.

“The way he handled himself, really throughout the entire trial, as somebody who is the Republican nominee, not campaigning, sitting in court all day, and I was right there with him the whole time, and I have no complaints about it,” Blanche said.

Trump’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for July 11, just days before the GOP’s national convention where Republicans are set to formally select Trump to represent the party on the ballot this fall.