TL;DR, the AG asked for a bench trial, Trump’s defense team didn’t respond, and so Trump gets a bench trial. It’s possible that a jury trial would have been disallowed in this particular case under New York law, but the defense didn’t even bother to ask.
Whelp, that’s on your people, Donald. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
You know you messed up when you run through so many good lawyers that the only people who are still willing to defend you are total goofballs.
My understanding is, with possibly one or two short term exceptions, he hasn’t even had mediocre attorneys for years now. None of the big firms have wanted anything to do with him since before he was president.
There was a good LegalEagle video the other day where he ranked all of Trumps lawyers.
Well, who wants to work for a known rapist and fraudster?
People who don’t give a fuck about the law, that’s who.
This is just so he can claim, later down the line, that it wasn’t fair because it was just one judge and not a jury blah blah