A COMBATIVE Donald Trump clashed repeatedly with the judge on Monday as he took the stand in the New York civil fraud case threatening to cripple his real estate empire.
One year out from an election he hopes will return him to the White House, Trump became the first former US president to testify as a defendant in a court case in more than a century.
During his testimony, the 77-year-old Trump accused Judge Arthur Engoron of issuing “fraudulent” rulings, and denounced New York state attorney general Letitia James, who brought the case against him, as a “political hack.”
“He called me a fraud and he did not know anything about me,” Trump said of the judge, who was sitting right next to him, before calling the trial a “political witch hunt.”
“This is not a political rally,” the judge admonished Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. “Please, just answer the questions, no speeches.”
At one point, a visibly angry Engoron told Trump’s lawyer, Christopher Kise, to “control your client.”
Dressed in a dark blue suit and tie with an American flag on his lapel, Trump denounced what he called a “very unfair” and “crazy trial” brought by Democrats “coming after me from 15 different sides.”
Trump, his eldest sons, Don Jr and Eric, and other Trump Organization executives are accused of exaggerating the value of their real estate assets by billions of dollars to obtain more favorable bank loans and insurance terms.
Testifying under oath, Trump dismissed allegations that the company’s financial statements were fraudulent, describing them as “very conservative.”
“They were not really documents that the banks paid much attention to,” he said, and the value of the “Trump brand” was not taken into account in the valuations of his assets.
“I became president because of my brand,” Trump said under questioning from Kevin Wallace, a lawyer for the New York attorney general’s office.
