Former US President Donald Trump and his lawyers during his civil fraud trial at the Manhattan courthouse in New York on October 2, 2023. BRENDAN MCDERMID / AFP
Unless the trial is televised, its protagonists will insult each other in front of cameras on the steps of the New York courthouse on Monday, October 2nd. So, before appearing before the court that accuses him of overvaluing the assets of his empire, the Trump Organization, and thereby obtaining advantageous financial conditions, Donald Trump once again denounced “the greatest witch hunt of all time.”
Wearing a blue tie, navy suit and scowl, the former president attacked state Attorney General Letitia James, an African-American Democrat who explicitly opposed Donald Trump when she was elected in 2018. “We have a racist attorney general who staged a horror show and assumed she would get Trump before she even knew anything about me,” accused Trump, who called 74-year-old Judge Arthur Engoron, also a Democrat, a “ rogue judge” who, in his opinion, valued Trump’s property at a fraction of its value.
“This is an attempt to harm me during an election,” the former American president claimed. Mrs. James remained undeterred on the steps of the palace: “No matter how powerful you are, no matter how much wealth you think you have, no one is above the law.” »
“An imaginary world, not the real world”
The trial is not criminal – Donald Trump faces no prison sentence – but carries high financial risks for the former president. It begins with a double handicap: the absence of a jury and an unfavorable judge since Mr. Engoron delivered a damning verdict for the former president before his trial last week. He agreed with the prosecutor and believed that Mr. Trump had inflated his assets.
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“In the world of the defendants, apartments with rent control are worth just as much as apartments without rent control; restricted land is worth the same as unrestricted land; Restrictions can vanish into thin air. It is an imaginary world, not the real world,” wrote Arthur Engoron on Tuesday, September 26.
He then decided to revoke the business licenses of Trump companies, including the Trump Organization, and ordered the appointment of a trustee to “manage the dissolution” of the legal entities in question. If the ruling is upheld on appeal, it could force Donald Trump to sell off New York properties, including Trump Tower, a Wall Street office building and golf courses.
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