Exasperated by Donald Trump’s non-responsive monologues during testimony in his New York fraud trial last week, state Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron finally told the former president’s lawyer to rein him in. “This is not a political rally,” the judge said. “This is a courtroom.”
Engoron, however, was mistaken. It was a courtroom and a political rally.
Trump turned his time on the stand into a tub-thumping recitation of the themes he hopes will carry him into a second term: that the deep state is persecuting him for his popularity and his election would constitute retribution for him and his supporters.
Trump’s testimony was first and foremost a high-stakes legal showdown in a civil case that threatens to impoverish his family and decimate their brand. And from a legal vantage point, he was routed.
The judge has already found in favor of New York Attorney General Letitia James that Trump and his company committed fraud. The fight now centers on the extent of the Trumps’ liability for a series of comically inflated valuations of their properties.