On Monday, former President Donald Trump testified in the civil fraud trial brought against him by New York Attorney General Letitia James. As could be expected, the former president didn’t pull punches after the court’s conduct finally became to much for him, leading him to sound off and Judge Engoron to get quite angry.
The former president’s judge-triggering testimony came after he had testified in largely hushed tones for about two hours. At a certain point, however, enough became enough and Trump spoke a good bit louder, accusing both Justice Arthur Engoron and New York Attorney General Letitia James of “trying to hurt” him.
Not stopping there, a furious Trump continued to go on the attack. He proceeded to refer to NY AG James as a “political hack” and accuse her of using her attacks on him in “this case to become governor.” Then, turning from AG James to Judge Engoron, proclaiming, “Everybody’s watching this case. He called me a fraud, and he didn’t know anything about me.”
Turning from those two to the court generally, Trump declared, “The fraud is on the court and not on me.” He added, “When you rule Mar-A-Lago is worth $18 million and she rules it’s worth $25 million, either people are very stupid or there’s a fraud. The fraud is on behalf of the court.”
And, turning back to Judge Engoron and blasting the seemingly low valuation given to Mar-a-Lago, Trump declared, “He said I’m a fraud because I didn’t value my property correctly. He’s the one who didn’t rule my property correctly.”
All that led to a member of the attorney general’s legal team, Kevin Wallace, asking, “You’re done?” Responding, Trump said, “I’m done,” and cooled off a bit. Judge Engoron was heated, however, and when Trump kept giving explanations instead of “yes” and “no” answers, the judge snapped, “We got another speech. I beseech you to control him if you can. If you can’t, I will. I will excuse him and use every negative inference that I can.”
Watch that here:
WOW.
Judge Engoron asked Trump’s lawyer to “control” the corrupt former president as he was testifying in his fraud trial:
"I beseech you to control him if you can. If you can’t, I will. I will excuse him and draw every negative inference that I can.” pic.twitter.com/Iq9yaEDJ0G
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) November 6, 2023
Trump lawyer Alina Habba commented on Judge Engoron’s fury, saying, “I was told to sit down today. I was yelled at, and I’ve had a judge who is unhinged slamming a table. Let me be very clear, I don’t tolerate that in my life, and I am not going to tolerate it here. And you know what? You shouldn’t either. Because not every American citizen gets to have a camera and a microphone, and what I’m seeing is such a demise of the American judicial system and democracy.”
Trump didn’t just sound off on the situation in the courtroom. He also used Truth Social to do so. Trump reposted a Truth Social post, for example, in which the post’s author argued, “There is a former REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT OF THE U.S. sitting on the stand RIGHT NOW in BLUE NEW YORK. There is NO VICTIM in the case and the judge already ruled against him before the trial starts. Virtually everyone running for President against @realDonaldTrump said these charges are BS. (The judge literally said “I do not want to hear” what Trump has to say!) I generated $1.1 BILLION in interest in our Treasury. Trust me we have PLENTY OF MONEY to defend SERIOUS FLORIDA CANDIDATES from prosecution by the DOJ and other PARTISAN PROSECUTORS. Everyone (I mean that literally!) should be OUTRAGED by how our justice system is being weaponized by partisan, LEFT WING DEMOCRATS. I am more committed than ever to setting up this legal defense fund! Talking to members ASAP!”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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