With all the hoopla over the new Speaker of the House, who is a hard-right MAGA zealot I’m sure we will all come to despise in no time, you may have missed a Trump event today. In his New York civil fraud trial Trump was called to the witness stand and put under oath. And then he was fined for violating his gag order again. Here are the details:
During a break in the trial this afternoon, Trump told reporters, “This judge is a very partisan judge, with a person who’s very partisan sitting alongside of him, perhaps even much more partisan than he is.” The person who is usually sitting next to Judge Arthur Engoron is his law clerk, Allison Greenfield. The original gag order happened when Trump posted that Greenfield was Chuck Schumer‘s “girlfriend.”
Upon hearing about the new remarks, Judge Engoron called Trump to the witness stand and put him under oath. This happened:
Trump said he was referring to Cohen, who he’s previously called a rat, a liar and a felon.
The judge asked Trump if he’d previously referred to his law clerk as “partisan” and Trump said, “maybe” he had referred to her as not fair because she’s “very biased.”
But, Trump insisted, he was referring to Cohen when he told reporters earlier that Engoron is “a very partisan judge with a person who’s very partisan sitting alongside him, perhaps even much more partisan than he is.”
Engoron said he found Trump’s testimony “not credible.” Then he fined Trump $10,000.
And then this happened:
Trump stormed out of the courtroom about 45 minutes later, after the judge denied a motion from his lawyers on a separate legal issue. Trump lawyer Cliff Robert had seized on Cohen’s testimony that Trump never explicitly instructed him to inflate his financial statements to ask the judge for a directed verdict dismissing the AG’s claims about the statements, which Engoron refused.
The abrupt departure appeared to catch even his attorneys by surprise and caused gasps throughout the courtroom.
“The witness just admitted that we won the trial and the judge should end this trial immediately. Thank you,” Trump told reporters after he left.
Under questioning from AG’s office, Cohen testified later Trump didn’t specifically tell him to inflate the numbers and said he was like a “mob boss” who tells you what he wants without directly telling you.
When Cohen wrapped up his fiery two days on the witness stand, Robert again asked the judge for a directed verdict, a request he said was “absolutely denied.”
“This case has credible evidence all over the place,” the judge said. “There is enough evidence in this case to fill this courtroom.”
In other news: Sidney Powell is still pushing the Big Lie in her social media accounts.
On her social-media accounts, Powell has continued to push claims that the 2020 election was rigged and that prosecutors in Georgia who brought the criminal case against her were politically motivated. The newsletter published by her dark-money group has shared articles arguing the Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis, “extorted” her guilty plea.
Plea deals can be canceled, can they not?
tRUMP can't handle being told what he can and can't do. Nobody had even tried to do that since his late father.
And that's why he's lashing out in courtrooms.
In speeches, TV, radio, inter-tube, and print media interviews, tRUMP could not just "stretch" the truth, but bend it until it broke!
But in a courtroom, it's the oldie but a goodie line from "Dragnet," combined with the oath administered in the courtroom: "Just the facts," and "Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?"
I believe that even just a few minutes after a situation, I don't think tRUMP can remember the actual truth.
I think while he's in the act of hearing things, and while he's in the act of saying things, he start to spin things in his favor.
He's 77, so by this point, it's probably subconscious.
tRUMP is such a badly damaged human being, that if he was a car, the insurance company would tell the owner to total it. It isn't worth trying to save it.
I'm liking this Judge Engoron. Also liking how Trump's repeated and reflexive attempts to move the trial to the Court of Public Opinion are back-firing, bigly. Bring it, judge.
So the R's were worn down by the MAGAts, and rallied behind an ingenue. Johnson's only been in Congress since 2016. Just to get the d**n thing over. Will be interesting to see what this guy is made of, in a job that slays even experienced pros. Will be harrowing if the R's refuse help to the Ukraine, just as winter is setting in, a gift to Putin. I am starting to see "electorial wipe-out" in the GOP's future.
I don't know about Sidney Powell, but I realized Jenna Ellis is the master of the non-confession.
Unlike the others who pled guilty, she insisted on first making a statement (a defense/rebuttal/F-U if you will) that mostly put the blame on others. She argues her only failure was lack of due diligence. Joyce Vance highlighted this Twitter/X exchange:
Tweeter: Why aren't you ashamed for being indicted?
Ellis: I'm innocent. Why would I be ashamed of that?
She still doesn't get it. In her mind, she will twist things so she can never be wrong (which is something she eventually faulted Trump for).
I'm intrigued by the dominoes. The first to seek a plea deal was the Coffee County bail bondsman. Follow the chain of plea deals:
Could Rudy be next? We are moving up the food chain to the bigger fish, just as Fani planned.
I note that Judge Engoron doubled the original fine, which was 5K to 10K. Pocket change to Trump. If he's planning to continue to double the fine for each violation, the fine will be at 560K with the eighth offense, doubling to over a million the next time and two and a half million for offense number ten. The trial is expected to run for months and it's in Trump's craw that details of Trump's crooked business practices are getting out.
The demands (twice today, if I read it right) to dismiss the case sound like Trump directives. Trump's legal "theory" was that the entire case is based on Cohen's testimony. (False.) Cohen was discredited as a witness because he admitted to perjury. (No new news there.) Without Cohen as a credible withness, the prosecution has no case and the judge must dismiss. (Not so fast, buster. There's a mountain of written evidence going back years that confirms what Cohen said. We've hardly started to look at that. Sit down – this is gonna take a while and cost you a lot.)
But Trump seemed to think he had five aces up his sleeve and today the case would end with Trump totally vindicated. Instead, Trump was publicly spanked. It has not yet dawned on Trump that before November is out, at the rate he's going, the fines for messing with the judge will be in the millions. This is a civil trial. Trump does not have to attend. This trial (and the fines) will destroy Trump's brand. To appeal in NY after the judge slaps a $250 million dollar fine on Trump, he has to post the amount of the fine in order to appeal. I don't think anyone will loan Trump the money without huge collateral. I don't see Trump sitting his trial out. I don't see Donald shutting up, and the media will goad Trump to say stuff.
BTW, it's entirely guesswork on my part to suggest that Judge Engoron has decided on a "doubling" formula. But let's see.
Poor little fool thinks he's another Teflon Don. He should be thinking about what happened to the original – no glory there.
I wrote^ that Johnson was an ingenue, when it's more accurate to say he was unknown to many in his own caucus. His record is frightening, a much quieter, smarter, more effective Gym Jordan. If Matt Gaetz is crowing, we're in trouble. So are the people of Ukraine.
In other completely routine and normal news for America; lather, rinse, repeat, reload (Maine's turn).
Judge Engoron called Trump's testimony not credible. How judicious of him! That's what we pay him for.