Donald Trump has no self control but unfortunately a court of law is a place where you have to exercise that, tough as it may be. He spoke aloud to his lawyers today, while throwing up his hands, and Judge Arthur Engoron told him to keep his voice down. If Trump keeps persisting in this behavior, he could be cited for contempt of court and he could even be removed physically from the proceedings. Associated Press:
A judge warned Donald Trump and others at his New York civil fraud trial to keep their voices down Wednesday after the former president threw up his hands in frustration and spoke aloud to his lawyers while a witness was testifying against him.
Judge Arthur Engoron made the admonition after Trump conferred animatedly with his lawyers at the defense table during real estate appraiser Doug Larson’s second day of testimony at the Manhattan trial.
State lawyer Kevin Wallace asked Engoron to ask the defense to “stop commenting during the witness’ testimony,” adding that the “exhortations” were audible on the witness’ side of the room. The judge then asked everyone to keep their voices down, “particularly if it’s meant to influence the testimony.” […]
Inside the courtroom, which is closed to cameras, Trump grew irritated as Larson testified. Trump’s lawyers were seeking to undercut the state’s claims that his top corporate deputies played games to inflate the values of his properties and pad his bottom line.
Trump threw up his hands during an exchange where his lawyer, Lazaro Fields, sought to establish that Larson had, at one point, undershot the projected 2015 value of a Trump-owned Wall Street office building by $114 million. Larson said the “values were not wrong — it’s what we knew at the time.”
The most dramatic part of today’s testimony centered around Larson testifying on Tuesday that he never gave Trump Organization’s former controller Jeff McConney permission to cite him as an outside expert. That prompted Fields to accuse him of lying, and he pointed to a decade-old email exchange between Larson and McConney.
That touched off an angry back-and-forth between the defense and state sides, with Trump lawyer Christopher Kise suggesting that Larson could risk perjuring himself and needed to be advised about his rights against self-incrimination. State lawyer Colleen Faherty called Kise’s comments “witness intimidation.”
Asked again whether he understood that McConney had asked for his input in order to carry out valuations, a weary Larson said: “That’s what it appears.”
Trump railed about that exchange during a court break.
“See what’s happened? The government lied. They just lie. They didn’t reveal all of the information that they had,” Trump said. “They didn’t reveal all the evidence that made me totally innocent of anything that they say.”
There’s all kinds of evidence that will prove Trump innocent, totally innocent in fact, if only these baddies would reveal it. This trial is not going to get any calmer, I think that’s a fair prediction to make. And if Trump can’t control himself, the Judge will do what’s necessary to keep order in his courtroom.
On a larger level, it’s obvious that Trump is worried as hell. If you look at what he’s posted on social media this morning it’s all hype about how he’s leading and what a great job he did when he was in office before. Trump’s in a unique position for any presidential candidate. He not only wants to win, as every contender before him has, but he has to win, because it’s his only shot at a self-pardon — and that is by no means guaranteed. It goes against common sense not to mention legal foundations set centuries ago that a person can’t be a judge in a case where he’s involved. You can find that precedent set in ancient Rome.
Nevertheless, Trump’s desperate and a self-pardon is his Get Out Of Jail card. That’s what he’s hoping and praying for. Meantime, if he continues to show up to court, he’s going to have to observe not only the decorum of the court but the gag order in place and so far that’s proving to be quite the challenge.
As executives of Court TV wait in the queue to get their piece of the pie.