“I beseech you to control him if you can,” [Judge] Engoron said. “If you can’t, I will. I will excuse him and draw every negative inference that I can.”
Ultra-mega-fucked.
Trump attorney Alina Habba at one point stood up and argued that the judge was there to listen to what Trump had to say. “I am not here to listen to what he has to say!” Engoron reportedly shouted, telling Trump’s counsel to sit back down. “We are here to hear him answer questions,” he added.
LMAO at a bottom tier lawyer trying to tell a judge how to do their job.
At one point, while he was being questioned on a 2021 financial statement, Trump claimed to have been too busy focusing on “China, Russia and keeping our country safe.” The state’s attorney reminded him that he was not president in 2021.
I liked how Trump claimed that Letitia James wouldn't know anything about 40 Wall Street. She had to suppress a chuckle. Her office is under 3 blocks away from it. Here's a Google Map of the two.
The problem is that this is a strategy, and it might work. The judge is showing signs of exasperation. The defense is laying the grounds for an appeal based on judicial bias. Viewed in that light, each time the judge interjects out of annoyance or exasperation is citable evidence. It's funny, but it is also rather dangerous.
The judge needs to calmly and patiently explain to Trump that he will be jailed for contempt if he doesn't follow the rules and act in good faith, and then dispassionately follow through with that consequence.
Don't threaten him, don't cajole his lawyers to constrain him, don't complain about his behavior. Just give him a time-out, like the petulant toddler he is, until he gets it through his skull that his bullshit won't be tolerated.
Once he comes back, if he won't agree to behave or if he does promise to behave and then breaks that promise, simply immediately put him back in the cell for another round.
Trump needs to see the inside of a holding cell for a while in order to act right.
As much as I'd love to see it, jailing him for contempt would play right into their plan. He wouldn't see 24hr of cell time before his fanatic base would be whipped into violence, painted as political persecution of the GOP (defacto) nominee
It's all paper thin excuses to anyone with critical thinking, but we know it'd be a successful ploy.
What the fuck is the national guard for then? It's the correct and legal punishment, and it's a matter of national security. These concepts are not conflicting.
I don't think it's a strategy, it's just a happy potential by-product, albeit an unlikely one.
Sure it's possible that a judge might make mistakes that may form the basis for a successful appeal. Is Engoron more likely to make mistakes because of Trump's antics? Not necessarily. Most people do their best work under pressure.
Trump's behavior is focused as always on his supporters. The more he appears to be persecuted the more his supporters will throw money at him - it's that simple. He's intentionally pushing the judge as far as he can without crossing the line into actual consequences.
Edit: as an aside the photos of these idiots always makes me think about how much time they've spent practicing their facial expressions in a mirror.
This judge already ruled that the Trump enterprise in NY is dead and for all business licenses to be pulled. That has been stayed pending appeal. They will not win the appeal.
This trial is purely for damages to see just how much of Trump's assets will have to be liquidated once Judge Engoron determines an amount based on this ridiculous "testimony."
At one point he indicated that he had sometimes felt the values assigned to his properties were off, but stated that the discrepancies were both “high and low.”
"Your honor, I'd like to take this opportunity to defend myself by confirming the facts of the case and also that I didn't listen when you told me what I'm accused of!" - The former POTUS
You underestimate the electoral power of making rural white folks feel like they can say the N-word without being looked down on as racist trash
These are the rat fuckers who think the president will make their families come back for thanksgiving again even though they have done no work to address that they all left because they tried to force some poor young girl onto cousin Maury with his husband right fucking there.
I've definitely seen a lot of backfire effect going on. If you voted for Trump because, for example, you thought that a political outsider would fix everything and you ignored all the bad shit in hopes that it would work out, then it's hard now to admit that you were wrong. Admitting that Trump sucks is also, for those people, admitting that they were foolish to ever believe in him, which is a difficult and intolerable admission. Better to just ignore evidence and move forward blindly in support.
At least, I've seen a lot of that in my mostly purple area where the divide is only getting worse and stronger.
This free book from 1951 about mass movements explains what is going on. They feel their lives are spoiled and maga gives them hope. Logic doesn't matter.
There was an article yesterday saying that both Trump and his lawyers are specifically trying to piss off the judge, at which point they'll use it as a point in their appeal. Oh, and his current lawyers have told him that even if the judge does try to their him in jail for contempt, they have strategies to ensure that he doesn't actually have to spend any time there. :/
Donald Trump was rebuked by Judge Arthur Engoron for giving “speeches” during his testimony on Monday before New York court in a civil fraud trial that will determine the future of his business empire.
“Some of your answers have not been in response to the question,” Engoron told Trump earlier in his testimony, adding that prosecuting attorney Kevin Wallace had been “very patient.”
“Getting ready to head to the Downtown Lower Manhattan Courthouse to testify in one of the many cases that were instigated and brought by my POLITICAL OPPONENT, Crooked Joe Biden, through agencies and surrogates, for purposes of ELECTION INTERFERENCE,” Trump wrote.
“Got a really Biased, Nasty, Club controlled, but often overturned, Judge, a Racist, Evil, and Corrupt Attorney General,” he added.” A dark day for our Country.
The former president has already been fined twice, and threatened with jail time, for violating a gag order put in place by Engoron after he attacked one of the judge’s clerks on social media.
On Friday, Engoron expanded the order, which barred the former president from publicly commenting on members of the court’s staff, to include similar restrictions on the statements of Trump’s attorneys.
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