November came in with a roar and if it keeps going like it began, this will not be a good month for Donald Trump. And he sensed that this was going to happen. That’s why he’s frantically posted 74 times in the past 24 hours. Trump just thought things would go south a bit later in the day when his idiot eldest son took the stand. But no, it got bad when the state’s expert witness spoke and said that banks were defrauded out of a lot of money — which undercuts Trump’s key defense, that the banks got paid back, so what are they bitching about, anyway? ABC News:
The state’s expert witness, Michiel McCarty, calculated that Donald Trump’s lenders lost $168 million in potential interest between 2014 and 2023, according to a report he presented in court.
McCarty’s testimony appeared to reinforce a central tenet of New York Attorney General Letitia James’ case: that Trump’s misrepresentations in his financial statements cost banks potential earnings from interest, even if the banks made money on the loans.
State attorney Kevin Wallace directed McCarty to a footnote in Judge Engoron’s earlier summary judgment order about the concept of lost interest, in which Engoron said, “The subject loans made the banks lots of money; but the fraudulent SFCs [Statements of Financial Condition] cost the banks lots of money. The less collateral for a loan, the riskier it is, and a first principle of loan accounting is that as risk rises, so do interest rates. Thus, accurate SFCs would have allowed the lenders to make even more money than they did.”
McCarty, who said he agreed with this assessment, ultimately found that banks lost a total of $168,040,168 in potential interest from loans related to four of Trump’s properties in Miami, New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.
Trump attorney Chris Kise fiercely objected, arguing that McCarty was testifying about facts not established during the trial. During questioning, state attorneys declined to ask a Deutsche Bank executive if the bank would have still done business with Trump had they known his financial statements were inflated.
“They are not ill-gotten gains if the bank does not testify it would have done it differently,” Kise said.
“I decided these were ill-gotten,” the Judge Engoron replied.
And that was not the first nor only terse exchange between the judge and Trump’s white-shoe law firm lawyer.
Only 15 minutes into what is expected to be a three-hour cross-examination, Judge Arthur Engoron snapped at defense lawyer Jesus Suarez for asking redundant questions.
“I see why this is going to take two or three hours. Some questions become three or four more questions,” Engoron said, interrupting the cross-examination to request that Suarez shorten his questions.
That prompted Trump lawyer Chris Kise to criticize Engoron for placing an unfair standard on the defense team.
“You never give them speeches. You never limit their questions,” Kise said about Engoron’s approach to the attorney general’s legal team. “I think it’s unfair.”
Kise stressed that the cross-examination of the state’s sole expert witness is particularly important since his testimony is likely to play into the judge’s calculation of Trump’s potential fine.
“This witness is the only witness they have that even hints … about ill-gotten gains,” Kise said.
Engoron, however, refused to back down.
“I stand by my rulings and statements,” the judge said.
Judge Engoron isn’t taking crap from anybody. That’s as it should be. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, he does about Trump’s latest morning tirade which disparages the judge.
And another.
And still another. And remember, this is ALL in violation of the gag order imposed, for which Trump has been sanctioned twice, to the tune of $15,000 in total.
The judge isn’t going to let his children alone, or let his people go, or let him off the hook. This is Accountability 101, a required course for the rest of us, but one that Donald has avoided taking. And if you think things are bad now, wait until Junior gets on the stand. I hope he’s relatively sober.
If Don Jr. has a lick of sense, he’ll be relatively sober. I guess if his addiction is really bad, maybe not. We shall see.
Why aren’t his truths fact checked by anyone? Yes it would be repetitive but it must be done every time. Is the judge overturned on appeal more often than other judges? Does he ignore the overturns? Why do you just let these statements stand and publish them over and over?
Who’s truths? former guy’s? I, and I’m pretty sure most readers on this site, are unaware trump is even capable of telling the truth. At the very least he treats truth as if it were the plague: something to be avoided. What he spews out on T.S. or xitter or wherever is so outrageous sensible people know it for lies and the magats wouldn’t know a lie if it leapt up and bit them on the ass.
Don Jr’s too far into his blow to appear in public without a bracing line or three in the men’s before entering the courtroom. It’s the powdered version of Dutch Courage.
Traitor Tot is farting against thunder! Panicking cause he knows he is going down!
Law according to Trump: if I’ve never heard of the term (e.g. disgorgement(, then the court cannot take that action against me.
Goodness be,
There are so many loose cannons in the Trump family, the whole courtroom may see some huge personal attacks, including violence …
The need to restrain anyone of them would not surprise me, maybe a short piece of duct tape across Trump’s mealy mouth would slow him down, but maybe he is careful enough to only cross over the gag order red line on his web rants, not even thinking about the fact, EVERYONE in the Court room has access to his shit-storm rants that cross that red line like a modern day tank with machine gun popping and the cannon rounds flying everywhere …
It is obviously going to be better for him AND the public with a stay in jail without his phone or special treatments …
He’s never wrong, so there is nothing anyone can say to him that could work better than the smell and noise in a jail, plus the clank of the door to his cell, and the big biker type with tattoos and full beard saying shut up dip shit … 🙂