His slip-ups will end up costing him dearly. Donald Trump had to take the stand Wednesday to explain new offensive comments made outside the courtroom at his civil trial in New York. Pleading in vain a misunderstanding to the judge, he received a second fine of $10,000.
Judge Arthur Engoron estimated that the Republican billionaire had once again attacked his principal clerk, while Donald Trump assured him that he was in fact targeting his sworn enemy Michael Cohen, who has been testifying against him since Tuesday in this fraud case on the value of the real estate assets of the Trump Organization.
The magistrate had banned any comments against members of his team from the second day of the trial. On Friday, he had already imposed a first fine of $5,000 for a publication deemed insulting about his clerk, which remained on the DonaldJTrump.com site for 17 days despite the magistrate’s request for removal.
“The witness is not credible”
This time, Donald Trump’s words were ambiguous. “This judge is a very partisan judge with a really partisan person sitting next to him, perhaps even more partisan than him,” he said in front of the cameras, in the hallway leading to the courtroom.
Informed of this new outing, the judge calls Donald Trump, navy jacket and blue tie, to the stand. Face closed, the favorite of the Republican primary responds “you and Cohen” when the judge asks him who he was targeting. “Are you sure you weren’t talking about my clerk?” », insists the magistrate. “Yes,” answers Donald Trump. Without convincing. “The witness is not credible”, decides the judge, before imposing a fine of 10,000 dollars.
“Mafia boss”
The hearing continued with the end of Michael Cohen’s testimony, grilled by Donald Trump’s lawyers, who highlighted his “lies” and his changes of heart since the time he worked for the former president.
Former personal lawyer of Donald Trump, Michael Cohen turned against him after being caught by American justice in 2018, then sentenced to three years in prison for tax evasion, lying before Congress, and violation of campaign financing laws election for the benefit of his former boss.
Pushed to his limits, he ended up admitting that he did not remember a direct intervention from Donald Trump to ask him to inflate the value of his real estate assets, an apparent contradiction with his testimony the day before.
Donald Trump’s lawyers then asked the judge to immediately pronounce a verdict and clear their client, which he refused, causing the former US president to leave the courtroom, visibly furious.
Michael Cohen then explained that Donald Trump spoke like a “mafia boss”, without giving an explicit order. Donald Trump “could tell us: ‘I’m not worth 4.5 billion (dollars). I’m more around 6 billion,” he had already said on Tuesday.