Lawyer Tells Us The Most Outrageous Moment In Trump's Civil Fraud Trial So Far
It's no surprise that former President Donald Trump civil fraud trial has been a spectacle, to say the least. Reuters reports that New York Attorney General Letitia James and Trump are facing off in a case that might have a severe impact on his real estate empire. James claims the defendant fraudulently inflated his wealth on financial statements so he could secure funding from banks and other institutions.
James aims to prevent Trump from buying commercial real estate, obtaining bank loans in the state of New York for five years, and serving as a director for New York-registered companies. James also wants Trump to pay a redress amount of $250 million. The office of the New York Attorney General released a statement on October 27 via X, formerly known as Twitter, where James shared, "Our case against Donald Trump is simple. You cannot engage in fraud to succeed in business."
Like a good episode of "The Apprentice," the drama keeps coming even though the trial only began in October. Trump has already stormed out of the courtroom, he has been fined twice, and Michael Cohen has made the shocking admission that Trump did not directly order him to inflate the numbers on his financials. While these events may seem jaw-dropping to the rest of the public, we asked lawyer Neama Rahmani about the moment he found most outrageous.
Judge Engoron isn't buying Donald Trump's defense
Neama Rahmani, former federal prosecutor and president of Los Angeles-based West Coast Trial Lawyers, spoke to Nicki Swift, offering exclusive insight into the wildest moment Donald Trump's civil fraud trial so far. "The most outrageous moment so far is when Trump took the witness stand and testified that his partisan comments were about Michael Cohen and not the judge's clerk," Rahmani said. The lawyer was referring to Judge Arthur Engoron, who fined Trump $10,000 for violating an order to refrain from verbally assaulting witnesses, court staff, and prosecutors during the trial. During a trial break on October 25, he'd aired his opinion in the hallway. He said that not only was Engoron biased, but so was the person who sat next to him. When he returned to the courtroom, Engoron called out Trump for the remarks he made. Trump's attorney, Chris Kise, then claimed that No. 45 had been referring to Michael Cohen, not Engoron's principal law clerk.
Engoron did not buy his defense and fined Trump $10,000, writing (via CNN), "Using imprecise language as an excuse to create plausible ambiguity... is not a defense." Rahmani, who is one of Harvard's youngest law graduates, then shared why Trump may be in deep water. He pointed out, "Engoron said Trump was lying, which is yet another bad sign for the former president." Trump was previously fined $5,000 for making disparaging remarks about the clerk. Can Trump resist trash-talking in the future, or will the judge carry out his threat of prison time?