11-12-23, 00:06
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#78
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re: TRUMP & N.Y. Judge That Had BOMB Threat, Had Contentious Exchange in Court
In a Reversal, TRUMP Says He Will NOT Testify in His Own Defense in New York Fraud Trial
The former president was scheduled to take the stand Monday as the months long, $250 million civil fraud trial against him and his company enters its final week.
AP 11 DEC 2023
In an eleventh-hour reversal, TRUMP announced Sunday he will not go back on the witness stand in the $250 million civil fraud trial against him and his company.
“I have already testified to everything & have nothing more to say other than this is a complete & total election interference (Biden campaign!) witch hunt” so “I will not be testifying on Monday,” TRUMP said in an all-caps, two-part post on his social media platform Truth Social.
TRUMP had been scheduled to testify Monday as one of the final defense witnesses in a trial that has lasted two months and is entering its final week of testimony.
He had been expected to tout his company’s success and push back on New York Attorney General Letitia James’ claims that he vastly overvalued his properties and his net worth in financial statements that he used to get favorable loans from banks that he otherwise would not have been entitled to.
Called as a witness by James’ team on Nov. 6, a combative Trump made similar claims while also launching attacks on the AG and the judge who will decide the case, Arthur Engoron. He called James a “political hack” who “should be ashamed of herself” and referred to Engoron as a “very hostile judge.” “He ruled against me and he said I was a fraud before he knew anything about me, nothing about me,” Trump said, referring to the judge’s pretrial finding that Trump and his company had engaged in repeated acts of fraud.
“It’s a terrible thing you did,” TRUMP told the judge of the order, which he is appealing.
James shrugged off TRUMP change of heart in a statement. "Whether or not Trump testifies again tomorrow, we have already proven that he committed years of financial fraud and unjustly enriched himself and his family. No matter how much he tries to distract from reality, the facts don’t lie,” the AG said.
TRUMP was under no obligation to testify since it’s his own defense case. His son Eric Trump similarly backed out of testifying this past Wednesday, which the elder Trump said in a social media post on Tuesday night he’d directed him to do.
Like his father, Eric Trump had testified as a witness in the AG’s case. “Eric has already testified, PERFECTLY,” Trump wrote, “so there is no reason to waste any more of this Crooked Court’s time on having him say the same thing, over and over again, as a witness for the defense.”
TRUMP sits between his two lawyers during his trial at New York State Supreme Court.
TRUMP used a similar rationale in his Truth Social posts on Sunday, writing in all-caps: "I have very successfully & conclusively testified" in the AG's "rigged trial against me." "The only fraud committed was by the highly partisan & out of control judge, & racist A.G.," he claimed.
'Only guilty people plead the 5th or refuse to testify in their own defense. The last time he was under oath, he pled the 5th over 400 times'
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