Penalties a left-wing plot, says Trump

Donald Trump on Saturday lashed out at the New York judge who ruled he must pay $354.9m in penalties for fraudulently overstating his net worth to dupe lenders, telling thousands of supporters at a campaign rally the decision was an “election interference ploy”.

Addressing supporters for the first time since justice Arthur Engoron on Friday hit him with huge financial penalties, Trump made the unsubstantiated claim that the judge was part of a “left-wing” conspiracy aimed at stopping him from becoming president again.

The former Republican president, frontrunner for his party’s White House nomination, told a crowd in Michigan that “these repulsive abuses of power are not just an attack on me, they are an attack on all Americans”.

Trump also repeated his lie that his 2020 election defeat to Democratic US President Joe Biden was due to election fraud.

Engoron also banned Trump from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation for three years. The judge said of Trump and his codefendants: “Their complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological.”

New York attorney-general Letitia James had accused Trump and his family businesses of overstating his net worth by as much $3.6bn a year over a decade to fool bankers into giving him better loan terms.

Trump spoke shortly after Nikki Haley, his last remaining rival for the Republican presidential nomination, who held an event in South Carolina. On Saturday morning, she wasted no time in going after Trump after Friday’s ruling, which handed him another legal setback in a civil case that imperils his real estate empire.

Trump also faces four state and federal criminal trials, including one in New York on March 25, over alleged hush money payments to a porn star. He will become the first former US president to stand trial on criminal charges.