Donald Trump arrived at the courthouse in Manhattan, New York, this Thursday and, in his speech at the door, launched into his usual tirade about “witch hunts,” “political interference,” and other platitudes. It marked the final arguments of the prosecution and its lawyers in the civil fraud trial, in which the prosecutor is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars to compensate for fraud on her accounts from which she profited for decades. The judge allowed the former president to intervene for a few minutes, who presented himself as a victim and attacked the judge and the prosecutor in the case.
“Right now the judge won’t let me plead because I’m bringing up things he doesn’t want to hear,” Trump said as he entered the building, describing the decision as “political interference.” “This is a case that should never have been tried,” said Trump, who maintains his innocence. New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, wants the judge to impose $370 million in sanctions against Trump.
Prosecutors accuse Trump, his sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., and other top Trump Organization executives of engaging in a scheme that spanned at least a decade in which they used “numerous acts of fraud and misrepresentation” to inflate Trump's net worth to obtain loans from banks on more favorable terms. The judge in the case already ruled in a partial summary that Trump had provided “fraudulent valuations” of his assets, leaving the trial to determine further action and decide what punishment, if any, the defendants should receive.
Trump has played a game of cat and mouse with the possibility of stepping in and making the final argument himself. His defense initially requested this and the judge allowed it, but then his lawyers missed the deadline to accept a time limit on their intervention. When he arrived in court this Friday, he said that he still planned to intervene in the final hearing, but at the moment of truth he had not asked for it. However, at the end of the lawyer, Trump spoke.
“Your Honor, this case contradicts the facts. The end of the year was perfect. “The banks got all their money back and were as happy as they could be,” Trump defended in a closed session, according to statements collected by US news agencies and media. “This is a political witch hunt that should be put aside. “We should get compensation for what we went through,” the former president said, ignoring the judge’s ban on engaging in political issues. “I am an innocent man. “I'm being persecuted by someone running for election and I think we need to push the boundaries,” he continued. “This is a fraud against me. “What happened here, Your Honor, is a fraud against me,” he insisted.
He later accused the judge of not listening to him. “I know this bores you,” the former president said. “Control your client,” the judge warned Trump’s lawyer, who also attacked prosecutor Letitia James.
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The former president claimed that tripling the square footage of his Trump Tower penthouse in his financial report was a mistake, “an honest mistake” that has been corrected.
In the afternoon, a New York prosecutor said in his closing argument that Trump and his “cash-strapped” company could not have completed several development projects without loans and the cash flow from interest savings that made the false financial reports possible, AP reports. “The fraud was fundamental to the Trump Organization’s operations,” said attorney Kevin Wallace. He said Trump and the other defendants intentionally included false information in the company's financial reports.
Trump skipped the afternoon session in favor of a press conference that served as a counterprogram to the state's closing arguments. At an office building he owns in Lower Manhattan, over which he could lose control as a result of the trial, Trump cursed President Joe Biden and a writer who accused him of rape, E. Jean Carroll.
The New York trial is not one of the four criminal cases the former president is facing, but it shows that the pattern of falsehoods he has used in his political life has its roots in his business history. In both cases yes, successful.
Judge Arthur Engoron said he would rule on the case because neither side had asked for a jury and state law does not allow juries for these types of lawsuits. He said he hopes to make a decision by the end of the month. Last month, in a ruling denying a defense request for early sentencing, the judge suggested he was leaning toward holding Trump and his co-defendants liable for at least some of the claims. “As has been explained throughout this process, assessments can be based on different criteria analyzed in different ways,” Engoron wrote in the Dec. 18 decision. “But a lie is still a lie.”
This Thursday's hearing had an unpleasant prologue. At 5:30 a.m., hours before the start of the final day of proceedings, Nassau County police said they responded to an “incident” at Judge Engoron's home in Great Neck, Long Island, following a bomb threat. According to authorities, nothing unusual was found at the crime scene.
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