Rage vs. ‘machine’
Eric Trump on Friday railed against the $250 million civil fraud case against his family after concluding testimony at the Manhattan trial — where he showed up in nearly identical clothes for two days in a row.
Trump, 39, testified for roughly 4 ½ hours spread over Thursday and Friday, when he appeared in Manhattan Supreme Court in what seemed to be the same navy suit, light blue tie, white dress shirt, brown oxford shoes and printed light blue socks on both days.
Outside the courtroom afterward, Trump blasted state Attorney General Letitia James — who is prosecuting the case — and the judge deciding it, echoing claims by his dad, former President Donald Trump, that the trial is a political witch hunt.
“This is a big charade that is a huge waste of taxpayer money and it’s the very reason everyone’s moving out of New York state, and I was actually one of them,” Eric Trump told reporters.
“It’s a joke, it’s an absolute joke,” he said, claiming James was using the case to bolster her career.
The former first son was adamant about his innocence and confident that his family would prevail at trial.
‘Fired up’
“Guys, we’re going to win this thing,” he said. “I promise you we’re going to win it because we haven’t done a damn thing wrong.”
He told reporters that his father was “certainly” going to show up to court Monday to testify.
“He is very fired up to be here,” the former president’s middle son said. “He thinks this is one of the most incredible injustices he has ever seen, and it totally is.”
On Thursday, in a series of posts on Truth Social, Donald Trump, 77, blasted the judge, the AG and the case, claiming his sons and co-defendants Eric and Don Jr. were being “persecuted.”
Eric Trump’s testimony followed Donald Trump Jr.’s roughly three hours on the stand Wednesday and Thursday and was expected to be followed by the former commander in chief ’s testimony Monday and their sister Ivanka’s Wednesday.
The two elder Trump sons, their dad and the family real estate company are all defendants in the attorney general’s lawsuit accusing the family’s patriarch of lying on annual financial statements for a decade, inflating his assets to the tune of billions of dollars a year for better loan and insurance terms.
Both Don Jr., 45, and Eric claimed under oath that they weren’t involved in their father’s yearly statements of financial condition. While Don Jr. turned to banter and deflection during questioning by prosecutors, Eric took a much more serious and at times aggressive tone with the prosecutor.
They both said they relied on accountants and lawyers to ensure that anything they signed was accurate, and Eric said he didn’t even know what the statements were until the attorney general brought the case.
But prosecutors spent time confronting Eric with evidence suggesting he knew about the firm’s statements of financial condition as early as 2013.