Trump 'Rehearsed' His Unhinged Fraud Trial Rant for Days Before the Judge Shut Him Up
Trump 'Rehearsed' His Unhinged Fraud Trial Rant for Days Before the Judge Shut Him Up
Donald Trump rehearsed closing arguments in a New York civil fraud trial before being denied from delivering them by Judge Arthur Engoron.
Closing arguments in New York’s civil fraud trial against Donald Trump took place on Thursday, and despite having been officially barred from personally delivering his defense’s closing statements, the former president launched into an unauthorized rant before the court and Judge Arthur Engoron.
Sources told Rolling Stone that Trump had been rehearsing what he thought would be a blistering, dramatic conclusion to the case that will determine the fate of his business empire.
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Based on what the two sources relay to Rolling Stone this week, it appears Engoron’s assumption that Trump would use the forum to rave about his own grievances was right on the money. The former president’s private “rehearsing” of what he planned to say included haranguing the judge’s staff, railing against the New York attorney general as “racist” and soft on crime, claiming that the trial was an example of the Democratic Party and Biden administration supposedly trying to “rig” the 2024 election, and gratuitously boasting of the values of his sprawling business and real-estate empire, among other jabs and bluster.
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I'm not a lawyer, so I have no idea about what the answer to this question will be, but can anybody who is familiar with New York law tell me if there is any good legal reason why Engoron didn't immediately shut that shit down and hit him with contempt of court and the $50,000 fine he warned Trump's lawyers would follow if he burst into a tirade? Because I absolutely detest the idea that he just let that fat orange idiot vent his spleen for a few minutes because of political pressure.
My guess (also not a lawyer) is to render the verdict as appeal proof as possible. If he wasn't allowed to speak, he would have claimed that his rights were violated and if he had been allowed to give the closing remarks himself, he would have been found totally Innocent.
Engoron let him talk relatively briefly, cut him off when it was clear he wasn't staying on topic, and closed off this appeal argument.
This 100%. Trump's whole playbook is to delay the inevitable. It's clear he's just pushing everything until he has the Republican nomination, and then it doesn't matter what happens, he'll be considered too big to fail by Republicans, and get as much protection as he can from them.
You’re probably right but it still pisses me off. No one else gets to pull that shit. Defendants that want to be heard in court can take the stand and all the risks that come with cross examination.
Would that even be a concern, though? I mean, it's my understanding that the judge has already ruled in this case, and this was just about establishing penalties, right?
He would file an appeal that would surely fail. But it would delay payment of the fine.
I mean, let's be real here. Trump's 100% going to file an appeal no matter what Engoron does.
It's not a question of if, but how many.
And how much traction they get, or if they’re even heard at all.
There's a few considerations why he's being handled with kid gloves compared to anyone else:
- as opposed to your random defendant, Trump has (in theory) access to an unlimited amount of lawyers that will jump on anything that can be seen as bias or any other indication that something might not be done by the book. In practice, of course, he's gotten so many lawyers in legal trouble by roping them into criminal schemes that he's scraping the bottom of the barrel.
- when Trump denounces someone, death threats follow. And a lot of those are obviously bullshit, but you never know if someone somewhere is going to carry out some kind of plan. So they're super careful to not sound too harsh when dealing with him. Having to live with police protection isn't fun and is super disruptive, especially to family.
- they want to make sure nothing they do gives cause to getting something overturned in an appeal, so they're making sure he's given every right and procedure he could possibly call on
Ok, but like... the first two points you raised have nothing to do with the legal system and are just about metagaming and cowardice. And the third... Judge Engoron has already determined that Trump is liable in this case, like a couple of months ago. So this is just about figuring out the punishment. And as long as he doesn't give some outrageously absurd fine or penalty, then this won't really have an impact on an appeal. The appeal would be for the original decision finding him guilty of engaging in fraud. So I'm not sure what actual legal reason he'd have for treating him with kid gloves here. I mean, Trump's going to appeal one way or the other, and he's well within his rights to hit him with contempt of court. Hell, he even said as much to Trump's lawyers the other day in an email exchange where he said if Trump does what he just did, he'd hit him with a $50,000 fine.