6 months ago
33
Things don't seem to be going well in the courtroom where Donald Trump is testifying in a civil fraud case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James. As he fights to save his ability to do business in New York, Trump has come into the courtroom with too much of the energy he brings to his Truth Social posts.
After a morning of attacking Judge Arthur Engoron, being rebuked by the judge, and making ludicrous claims like estimating the value of Mar-a-Lago at over $1 billion, Trump really lost it, according to reporters on the scene:
Trump’s lawyers must have had an outburst like this baked into their plans for this trial—there was basically no way someone with Trump’s fragile ego and poor self-control would make it through prosecutors’ questioning without having some kind of temper tantrum. Part of their legal strategy appears to be attempting to provoke Engoron into something that could force a mistrial or help Trump on appeal.
Last week, Engoron expanded the limited gag order, which bars Trump from attacks on court staff, to cover Trump’s lawyers as well. That followed Trump attorney Christopher Kise’s apparent attempt to bait Engoron by calling out his judicial clerk, a favorite target of Trump’s. On Friday, Kise explicitly raised the possibility of a mistrial. If Trump’s abuse from the witness stand prompted any kind of unusually harsh rebuke from Engoron, it could feed into such an effort. Engoron surely knows this, though, and is trying not to give Trump’s lawyers anything to work with while also trying to keep the testimony on track.
The day is not done. Will Trump get himself under whatever passes for control with him, or will this go even more off the rails?
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