Could Nobel Peace Prize nominee Trump use "old man defense" in upcoming trial?

By Hal Brown

I'm sure you remember the photo (top, above) which was shared on social media in February of 2019. Raw Story decided to use it in this article today:

Click above to read article

This is what Bradley Moss, a national security lawyer based in Washington, DC, said on Lawrence O'Donnell last night:

"He's going to say he's gotten old. He's been with all these retirees down in Florida. He can't think anything straight. He doesn't know what he has, he forgets things. He gets facts jumbled up," Moss joked. "Look at that clip, he is talking about, 'Oh we were negotiating when Nauta and I got raided.' Well, no, you left something out. There was a subpoena that came after that, after you started giving stuff back. And you lied to the DOJ, you had Nauta moving documents; that's why you got raided. I understand. It happens to a lot of individuals when they move down to Florida. They start to get confused. It will be me one day, I'm sure. But no, this is not a defense. He has clearly walked himself into a bunch of damaging admissions. Jack Smith has gotta be recording all of that, and they are just laughing and popping popcorn because he did nothing to help his case."

I found it interesting that the 2019 photo was used to illustrate this article because Trump was obviously not as old an old man then than he is now. 

In finding the photo on Twitter I came across this from a Chris Hayes show from four years ago:

Click above to enlarge

It's worth watching. The episode includes a description of how Trump bragged about his fake Nobel Peace Prize nomination "for a little thing called the Nobel Peace Prize, perhaps you've heard of it."

You can watch the video here:

Now to the question as to whether it would make sense that Trump could use the "old man defense" in his upcoming documents case trial, now scheduled to begin in mid-August, or any other cases.

Of course there's no such thing as an "old man defense" per se. There are however, the diminished capacity defense and the not reason by reason of insanity plea described here.

These defenses actually might be appropriate for Trump, or more precisely for Trump's lawyers to pursue since he'd never agree to either of them. Being a therapist and not a lawyer I can only suggest that there is evidence that he could avoid prison using either defense. I don't know whether Trump's lawyers would be able to convince a judge to order an involuntary psychiatric assessment to determine whether Trump is capable of making this decision on his own.

My understanding of the law is that a defendant has to be able to understand the charges against him and participate in his own defense in order to stand trial. If this is true then it's possible Trump could be ordered into treatment until he is determined to be "sane enough" to stand trial.

Addendum:

"And by the way, when Bill Barr, who's, you know, a coward, Bill Barr was a coward. Bill Barr didn't do what he was supposed to do. I fired him and he has great hatred. And that's OK, because some people do. And some people love me very much."