D-Day of the trial against former US President Donald Trump presented by the State of New York has arrived. Trump is testifying before Judge Arthur Engoron in a case in which the Prosecutor’s Office is asking for a fine of 250 million dollars (almost 233 million euros) and to force Trump to liquidate the companies through which he controls approximately 800 million dollars. (about 750 million euros), which represents a third of his fortune. The financial hit to the former president and candidate in 2024 would not end there, as Trump would lose his license to do business in the state of New York. His children from his first marriage – especially Don Junior and Eric, but also Ivanka – could be convicted as accomplices to the fraud allegedly carried out by his father.
Trump’s statement is the key moment of the process. And the president has transformed it into a political rally. Before appearing in court, Trump posted on his social network Truth Social one of his usual posts full of words in capital letters attacking Engoron and New York Attorney General Tish James, whom he accused of being “racist,” presumably because she is black.
Throughout the process, Trump has attacked Engoron and James on countless occasions, and also other court officials, especially official Allison R. Greenfield, for being “the girlfriend of Chuck Schumer,” the majority leader. Senate Democrat. Justice has forced Trump to delete that message, and Engoron has imposed two sanctions of $5,000 each (4,650 euros) on the former president for those actions. They are symbolic fines for Trump, who is believed to have assets of around 2 billion. The former president is also using the trial to send emails to his followers asking for money.
At the hearing, Trump continued with the rally tone of the day, to the point that Engoron had to say to Trump’s lawyer, Chris Kisie, “can you control your client?” He has been of no use. The former president clearly sees the process as an opportunity to strengthen his candidacy for 2024, where he is virtually the Republican candidate – his voting intention is greater than that of the other nine candidates of that party combined – and he has decided to take that strategy to the extreme. Thus, when the judge ordered a 15-minute break, Trump took the microphone and said that “this trial is very unfair. Very, very unfair. And I hope the public is watching it.”
After the intermission, Trump has become more calm… For a while. That has not prevented constant clashes with Engoron, in part because of the defendant’s inveterate tendency to go around the bush celebrating, for example, the beauty of his golf course in Scotland – “one of the most beautiful estates one has ever seen.” – or trying to justify overvaluing on the basis that there is oil in that part of the UK. In the trial, Trump already resorted to all kinds of arguments, including that, when he was president, “he saved the lives of millions of people” by preventing a war between the United States and North Korea. The former president did not explain the relationship between North Korea and the accounting falsification for which he has been prosecuted.
Everything seems to indicate that Trump has lost the process. Before the oral hearing began, Engoron issued an opinion in which he stated that the Prosecutor’s allegations of fraud are a proven fact. These are based on the fact that Trump dramatically inflated the price of his properties to use them as credit guarantees with banks (almost all of them foreign, given that American entities have not done business with Trump for more than two decades), while Then he lowered his price to pay less to the Treasury.
It is true that this is a common practice among companies and individuals, but the size of Trump’s exaggerations is what makes him vulnerable. Thus, he multiplied by 66 the appraisal price of 12 apartments on the exclusive Park Avenue in New York, and by 23 that of his Mar-a-Lago country club, in Florida. The former president does not seem to have any intention of admitting any type of error, as he demonstrates that, before entering the trial, he said that the value of Mar-a-Lago is, in reality, 50 times greater than the independent appraisal price .