Former President Donald Trump is fighting 91 criminal counts in four different cases, but it is the civil case in New York against him and his sons and the Trump Organization about which he is most irate at present. Taking to Truth Social and using familiar language (“rigged”) after the latest blow to his defense, Trump raged that the system has “essentially taken away” his “Rights.”
Trump assailed Judge Arthur Engoron and New York District Attorney Letitia James as parts of a “Rigged Court in a Rigged New York State System, with Fraud committed by the A.G. and Judge in purposefully undervaluing” his properties, the crux of the case. (Trump has already been found by the judge to have committed fraud by reportedly inflating the values of his holdings to gain favorable treatment by lenders, an accusation he denies — the case here is to determine the penalty.)
Trump’s latest social media rage is in reaction to a 3-page denial of the Trump team’s effort to get the case dismissed, in which Engoron wholly discredited the testimony of Trump expert witnesses, especially that of New York University professor Eli Bartov, of whose testimony Engoron wrote: “By doggedly attempting to justify every misstatement, Professor Bartov lost all credibility.”
[Engoron also unsubtly referred to the experts’ compensation by the defense, writing “that for a million or so dollars, some experts will say whatever you want them to say.”]
Trump lawyer Chris Kise implied that the judge purposely ignored the evidence presented by the defense in order to arrive “at a predetermined destination.” Before the latest decision, as testimony concluded last week, Kise trod the same boards, urging the Court to “put an end to the Attorney General’s manifestly unjust political crusade” and threatening that — if it did not — an appellate court would. Oral arguments in the case are scheduled for January 11.
Statement from Trump's lawyer Chris Kise about the end of the fraud trial today:
— Erik Uebelacker (@Uebey) December 13, 2023
Today's recap: https://t.co/X5Dnp2oEiS pic.twitter.com/rUAEHiDPIK
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