New York | Donald Trump testifies at his fraud trial

(New York) Donald Trump testifies under oath Monday in New York court to defend himself in a civil trial for fraud that threatens his real estate empire, the first in a long series of legal meetings that upend his path to a possible return to the White House.

At 10 a.m., the 77-year-old billionaire entered the Manhattan courthouse and immediately attacked New York State Attorney General Letitia James, who is pursuing him and who assured that the “facts” and “figures” would prove him right.

One year less a day before the presidential election of November 5, 2024 and while a poll favors him against President Joe Biden, Donald Trump assured that “the people [américain] understood, saw and did not like” this “very unfair” civil trial.

“They don’t like it because it’s political warfare,” proclaimed the Republican businessman.

With a closed face, he entered the courtroom and sat on the defense bench surrounded by his lawyers.

It is the first time in more than 100 years that a former president has been called to testify in his defense at a trial, since Theodore Roosevelt in the 1910s.

Dressed all in blue, the former president took the oath, hand raised, and his questioning by one of Letitia James’ deputies, Kevin Wallace, began.

Since October 2, the proceedings have been chaired by Judge Arthur Engoron, whom Mr. Trump has called every name — “thug,” “deranged,” “hateful.” The magistrate issued him two fines of $5,000 and $10,000 for attacking his clerk.

The former President of the United States succeeds as witness his two adult sons Donald Jr. and Eric, interviewed last week.

Attorney General James, an elected Democrat, has filed a civil lawsuit against the staff of the Trump Organization family group, accusing the Trump father and son of having colossally inflated the group’s assets – a myriad of companies managing skyscrapers, luxury hotels and residences or golf courses around the world — to obtain better bank loans and more favorable insurance conditions.

She is demanding a $250 million fine and bans on running businesses for the Republican billionaire and his children.

Heard twice during the investigation, Donald Trump denounced, in the preamble to his first testimony on August 10, 2022, “the biggest witch hunt in the history of our country”, before remaining silent.

During his second hearing, on April 13, 2023, he refuted any fraud, ensuring that the banks “had made a lot of money”.

“Repeated frauds”

The trial is off to a bad start for the Trump family: a few days before its opening, the judge ruled that the New York State Attorney General’s Office presented “conclusive evidence that between 2014 and 2021, the defendants overvalued the assets” from the group of “812 million [à] 2.2 billion dollars” depending on the year, in the figures recorded on Donald Trump’s annual financial statements.

As a result of “repeated fraud,” he ordered the liquidation of companies managing these assets, such as the Trump Tower on 5^e Avenue de New York or the neo-Gothic style skyscraper and almost centenary of 40 Wall Street. In other words, if the decision, suspended on appeal, was applied, the Republican billionaire would lose control of part of his real estate empire, he who had launched into politics on his image as a successful builder.

For the past month, Donald Trump, who is not facing prison in this civil case, has regularly attended the debates, taking advantage of his visits to pose as the victim of a legal scheme in front of the cameras. Theses were repeated the same evening on most of the media popular with conservatives, such as Fox News.

On the merits of the case, his lawyers refute any fraud, arguing that real estate evaluations are necessarily subjective and that the lending banks have not lost a dollar.

This trial is only one of the first legal tests awaiting Donald Trump, criminally charged in four other cases. In particular, he must appear in federal court in Washington from March 2024 for his alleged illegal attempts to reverse the result of the 2020 election.