(New York) Donald Trump returned Thursday for the final stretch of his civil trial in New York for financial fraud, obliged however to let his lawyers plead his defense in the courtroom, even if he still denounced in the corridors a “electoral interference” in the middle of the 2024 presidential campaign.
The former tenant of the White House who dreams of returning there is accused with his sons Eric and Donald Jr of having colossally inflated during the 2010s the value of skyscrapers, luxury hotels or golf courses in the heart of their empire, the Trump Organization, to obtain more favorable loans from banks and better insurance conditions.
New York State Attorney General Letitia James, who filed a civil complaint in the fall of 2022 for financial fraud, is demanding $370 million in compensation from them.
Since the trial began on October 2, the 77-year-old billionaire and tribune has raged against justice at each of his appearances in the courtroom or in the corridors of the Manhattan courthouse, denouncing a political or political “witch hunt”. a “trial worthy of a banana republic”.
Returning to the civil court on Thursday, he once again thundered in front of the press against “political interference”, “electoral interference at the highest level” and a “very unfair trial”.
No “fraud”
For three months, the Trump clan’s lawyers have deemed the case legally empty.
One of them, Chris Kise, recognized on Thursday possible “unintentional” errors in Mr. Trump’s financial declarations, but without it being necessary to “conclude fraud”.
But the favorite of the Republican Party primaries which open on January 15 in Iowa wanted to ensure his own defense.
Me Kise thus wrote to court judge Arthur Engoron at the beginning of January to inform him of the wishes of his eminent client.
According to an exchange of emails included in the legal file and consulted by AFP, on the advisability and conditions of such an exceptional request, the magistrate issued a sharp dismissal on Wednesday.
He didn’t want to risk Mr. Trump “delivering a campaign speech” in the courtroom.
Me Kise initially tried to have the argument postponed until January 29 by arguing that Donald Trump’s mother-in-law had “died” on Tuesday and that he “was very close to her.”
Request rejected by the judge who set an ultimatum on Wednesday so that Donald Trump could speak under conditions: “It’s take it or leave it. It’s now or never. You have until noon, in seven minutes. I WILL NOT GIVE ANY ADDITIONAL DELAY. »
Trump will not plead
A quarter of an hour later, the judge ruled: the former president “will not speak before the court” on Thursday.
PHOTO JEFFERSON SIEGEL, THE NEW YORK TIMES
In a sign of the tense climate, police in Nassau County, on the Long Island peninsula east of New York, confirmed that Judge Engoron’s home had been the subject of an unfounded bomb threat. .
In front of the courthouse, under surveillance from a helicopter, a few demonstrators chanted “no dictator in the United States”.
At the hearing, Donald Trump violently attacked the judge’s team and the attorney general, and the magistrate imposed two fines totaling $15,000.
Unlike the criminal trials awaiting him this year, including that for his alleged maneuvers aimed at reversing the result of the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump does not risk prison in this civil case.
But he plays big.
Even before the trial, Judge Engoron estimated at the end of September that the prosecution presented “conclusive evidence that between 2014 and 2021, the defendants overvalued the assets” of the group by “812 million (to) 2.2 billion dollars » depending on the year, in Donald Trump’s financial documents.
As a result of “repeated fraud”, he ordered the liquidation of companies managing his assets, such as the Trump Tower on 5e Avenue or the 40 Wall Street skyscraper in Manhattan.
Measures however suspended on appeal.
The trial concerns other crimes, such as insurance fraud, and financial penalties requested by the New York State Attorney General’s Office, which is now seeking $370 million, far from the $250 million in the 2022 complaint. .
It remains for Judge Engoron to close the proceedings and determine the amount of damage and reparations.