Legal expert: Donald Trump would fail in all his trials with the insanity defense

According to lawyer and former US Army prosecutor Glenn Kirschner, Donald Trump cannot claim insanity in any of his criminal trials.

In a YouTube video posted on Sunday, Kirschner addressed a question he said was “being asked more frequently these days, and probably for good reason” – whether Trump could plead insanity in his criminal trials.

“That's a fair question. We've all seen Donald Trump freeze up at his rallies sometimes for 20 seconds or more. I mean, those are obvious cognitive issues. And we're hearing some of Donald Trump's tirades and ramblings lately,” he said.

Kirschner spoke of a moment earlier this week when the former president was distracted by a box of Cheerios during a press conference in Bedminster, New Jersey, and said, “That is not the language or behavior of a president or even a functioning adult.”

The insanity defense was passed by the U.S. Congress and signed by then-President Ronald Reagan in 1984. It requires a defendant to prove that “at the time the criminal acts were committed” he or she was “incapable of recognizing the nature and quality or the wrongfulness” of his or her actions “due to serious mental disease or defect.”

Essentially, the defendant admits the crime but denies guilt. The defendant also bears the burden of proving that he or she could not distinguish between right and wrong at the time the crime was committed.

“The telltale sign that someone can distinguish right from wrong is not that he suffers from a serious mental illness or defect that makes him unable to distinguish right from wrong, but that he has tried to get away with his crimes,” Kirschner said.

“And Donald Trump is trying to get away with his crimes every second, every minute of every day, since he committed his many crimes,” he added.

“Is he a narcissist, does he have personality disorders? All day long. Is this the kind of severe mental illness or defect that would lead to insanity? Absolutely not,” Kirschner continued.

“That is my position as a former prosecutor who has tried insanity cases. Donald Trump will never, ever have a successful insanity defense.”

Newsweek emailed Trump's attorney Todd Blanche on Sunday for comment.

After Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case against Trump in connection with the secret documents in July and he was found guilty in the hush money case in New York in May, two criminal cases are still pending against the former president.

One of them is the case of the January 6 riots, in which Trump is accused of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government in connection with his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election won by President Joe Biden.

Trump has already pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. He accused the special counsel in the case, Jack Smith, of “prosecutory misconduct” and said he was wrongly targeted as part of a political “witch hunt.”

After the original start of the trial was postponed to March 4, 2024, there is still no fixed date for the official start of the trial.

The other case is the Georgia election interference trial. Trump is charged with 10 counts (the number was reduced from 13) in connection with his alleged attempts to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia along with 18 of his allies. The charges against him include forgery and organized crime – which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

In this case, too, the former president has pleaded not guilty. There is no set date for the trial to begin and it is unlikely that this will change in the near future.