Trump says he is ‘innocent’ of fraud as bomb threat upends last day of trial
The last day of Donald Trump’s fraud trial set off a frenzy in New York on Thursday morning, with a bomb squad called to the home of the judge overseeing the case and crowds of reporters and spectators packing the courtroom to see the trial’s end.
Thursday was the last chance for Trump’s team to make an appeal to Judge Arthur Engoron, who will decide whether Trump will be fined as much as $370m for falsifying financial statements to inflate his net worth.
Before the hearing, police in Nassau county on Long Island said they responded to a security incident at Engoron’s residence at 5.30am. Engoron and his staff have been frequent targets of vitriolic criticism from Trump throughout the case, and his office has been bombarded with death threats.
On Wednesday, Trump’s legal team and Engoron clashed again over Trump’s unusual request to deliver his own closing arguments at the trial. Engoron refused to allow Trump to speak after his lawyers declined to confirm he would not use the opportunity to deliver “a campaign speech” or “impugn myself, my staff, plaintiff, plaintiff’s staff, or the New York state court system”.
Trump took the opportunity to express his feelings nevertheless. After sitting quietly during his attorneys’ closing arguments, the former president launched into a rant.
“I am an innocent man,” he told the judge.
“What happened here, sir, is a fraud on me.”
Trump insisted that he was persecuted by “someone running for office”, referring to Letitia James, the New York attorney general who brought the case against Trump.
Engoron cut him off, asking his lawyers to control their client. Trump left the courtroom shortly after.
The packed courthouse was reminiscent of other key days in the trial, when the former Trump fixer Michael Cohen testified in October and Trump took the stand in November.
A small group of anti-Trump protesters briefly blocked traffic in front of the courthouse holding a banner and chanting “No dictators in the USA!”
Trump’s lawyer Christopher Kise called the case “insane” and said James was prosecuting a “victimless” offense.
“If there was a jury in that box, I’d be looking at them right now,” Kise said as he began his closing arguments. The hearing is a civil trial, meaning Trump does not face jail time if found guilty, and a bench trial, meaning the judge is the sole decider of the case.
Kise repeated arguments that Trump’s legal team had made throughout the trial: that lenders were not harmed by the Trump Organization, that the company’s accounting firm was responsible for the financial statements at the center of the trial and that the statements came with a disclaimer that Trump has argued made them “worthless”.
Many of these arguments were struck down by Engoron in his pretrial ruling, issued in late September. In his ruling, he also placed sanctions on Trump’s lawyers, worth $7,500 each, for repeating arguments he had struck down.
Undeterred, Kise ended his argument by appealing to Engoron, who he said had issued a “corporate death penalty” to Trump. In his pre-trial ruling, Engoron ordered that Trump and the other defendants, including his two adult sons, lose their New York business licenses, making it impossible for him to do real estate in the state. Trump’s team is appealing the decision.
After Kise finished his nearly twohour speech, Engoron lightly quipped: “That was quite a feat of endurance.”
In closing arguments for prosecutors, state attorney Kevin Wallace said: “Fraud was central to the operation of the Trump Organization’s activities.”
He reiterated the attorney gen
eral’s arguments that the company had mischaracterized Trump’s assets – for instance by claiming Trump’s apartment was three times its actual size – for financial gain.
“They cannot argue that Trump’s triplex was, in fact, 30,000 sq ft,” Wallace said. “Or that unsold units at Trump Park Avenue weren’t rent-stabilized.”
It is unclear when Engoron will issue a verdict, though he has suggested he will do so by the end of January. Trump could face four other trials this year, including criminal trials in Washington and Georgia for attempts to overturn the 2020 election and another criminal trial in Florida over mishandling classified documents. Trump also has another trial in New York scheduled for allegedly using campaign funds for hush-money payments to an adult-film star. Trump has pleaded not guilty in all those cases.
After leaving court, Trump held a press conference at 40 Wall Street, one of the properties whose disputed value has been central to the case. “I want to go to all of my trials,” he said. “These are all set up by Biden and the Democrats. This is their new form of cheating.”