Trump explains why he’s falling asleep in court

Sometimes the easiest explanation is the right one.

Why does Donald Trump keep nodding off during his hush-money criminal trial in New York? Because he’s bored. Or, said another way: “I’m catching up on my fucking sleep ‘cause I’m bored,” Trump told one source, per The Bulwark.

Trump’s sleep count started the first week of his trial after The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman was the first to report the former president dozed off during the proceedings.

“Well, Jake, he appeared to be asleep,” Haberman told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “His head would fall down. There would be other moments other trials, like the E. Jean Carroll trial, which was around the corner in January, he appeared very still and it seemed as if he might be sleeping but then he would move. This time, he didn’t pay attention to a note that his lawyer … passed him. His jaw kept on falling on his chest and his mouth kept going slack.”

Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records as part of an alleged effort to keep salacious — and, he says, bogus — stories about his sex life from emerging during his 2016 campaign. On Monday, Trump called the case  brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg a “scam” and “witch hunt.”

The charges center on $130,000 in payments that Trump’s company made to his then-lawyer, Michael Cohen. He paid that sum on Trump’s behalf to keep porn actor Stormy Daniels from going public with her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier. Trump has denied the sexual encounter ever happened.

Prosecutors say the payments to Cohen were falsely logged as legal fees.  Prosecutors have described it as part of a scheme to bury damaging stories Trump feared could help his opponent in the 2016 race,  particularly as Trump’s reputation was suffering at the time from comments he had made about women.

Trump has acknowledged reimbursing Cohen for the payment and that it was designed to stop Daniels from going public about the alleged encounter.  But Trump has previously said it had nothing to do with the campaign.