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Trump testifies in civil fraud case after Eric and Don Jr. took the stand last week - NBC News

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A testy former President Donald Trump took the witness stand in a New York courtroom Monday, testifying in a high-stakes $250 million civil fraud trial that could lead to the dismantling of his sprawling business empire while angrily launching several attacks against the judge and lawyers in the case.

Trump was sworn in shortly after the court was called in session and was soon ranting about the lawyer questioning him from state Attorney General Letitia James' office.

“You and every other Democrat … coming after me from 15 different sides … all haters,” Trump complained to his questioner, Kevin Wallace. He later complained that "people don’t know how good a company I built because people like you are going around demeaning me and I think it’s hurting America." He also blasted James as "a political hack" and said the case "is a disgrace."

Trump was testifying before state Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron — whom he has mocked on his Truth Social platform as "crazy, totally unhinged, and dangerous." In one post, he said Engoron "should be thrown off the 'Bench' as a giant Embarrassment to New York State!"

Trump wasted little time on Monday sparring with the judge from the stand. After Engoron chided him for giving nonresponsive answers, Trump said, "The judge will rule against me because he will always rule against me." Engoron said that comment was not true, and asked Trump to "please answer the question. You can attack me all you want but just answer the question."

After more tangents, he told Trump's lawyers, "I beseech you to control" him. "This is not a political rally," he said. He warned that if Trump failed to answer questions, "I will take every negative inference that I can."  

Trump later appeared to completely lose his cool about the judge, going off on a tirade from the stand."He called me a fraud and he didn’t know anything about me!" Trump yelled, referring to the judge’s ruling allowing the trial to proceed. Engoron ruled in September that Trump committed fraud for years, overstating his net worth by billions.

There’s no jury, so Engoron will be the one who ultimately decides the outcome of the trial, including whether Trump, his sons and his company should pay any penalties.

"This is a very unfair trial, very unfair. I hope the public is watching," Trump complained after the judge told him to answer questions.

Follow live updates from the trial.

Trump was briefly more focused after a morning break but soon started to go off on tangents again. Asked about information on his 2021 financial statement, Trump said, “I was so busy in the White House. My threshold was China, Russia, and keeping our country safe.” Wallace responded, "The question was actually about this property value," while also noting that Trump was out of office in 2021.

Trump also used his time on the stand to complain that the AG's office had undervalued his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago.

The attorney general's office had noted the Palm Beach County assessor appraised its market value to be $18 million to $27.6 million from 2011 to 2021, while Trump’s balance sheet put its value at $426 million to $612 million — a number Trump testified he thought was too low.

“The values are far bigger than what they are on the financial statements,” Trump said, adding it was "50 to 100 times" more valuable than the AG said. "I don’t know how you got that number," he added, calling it "absolutely crazy."

He returned to the topic unprompted later in his testimony. "The tennis court is worth more than 18 million," Trump said.

The courtroom was at full capacity ahead of the trial, with the number of photographers in the hallway outside the highest it had been since the beginning of the trial. Some friends of the judge and his clerk sat in the front row of the courtroom excited to witness history.

Trump’s previous sworn testimony related to the case has already been problematic for him.

He was first deposed while James was investigating the case in August 2022 and invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination close to 450 times.

He was deposed again in April after James filed her bombshell suit alleging that he and his company inflated their assets to the tune of billions of dollars to get more favorable rates from banks and insurers, and his answers there are likely to be a guidepost about how he’ll be questioned Monday.

Trump spent about seven hours in the deposition answering questions from the attorney general's office and disavowing responsibility for the annual statements of financial condition, which say “Donald J. Trump is responsible for the preparation and fair presentation of the financial statement in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America.”

The AG’s office maintains he strayed far from accepted accounting principles, but Trump testified that he trusted the accountants who compiled the statements and that in many instances he thought his properties were being undervalued.

Trump told James' office that at trial, "we’re going to have numbers that are going to knock your socks off."

"Your numbers are so incorrect. They’re actually so low, your numbers,” he said.

Engoron cited some of Trump’s deposition testimony in his September ruling.

“The defenses Donald Trump attempts to articulate in his sworn deposition are wholly without basis in law or fact," he said.

Trump also went off on rally-style tangents during his deposition. Speaking about offshore windmills in Scotland, he said: “They’re probably killing whales, which are washing up to shore, which nobody has ever seen before. Many whales are coming in where they’re doing it up in New England. No, I’m not a fan of wind.” 

Trump took the stand once very briefly in the fraud trial while he was in court for his former lawyer Michael Cohen's testimony. Engoron asked Trump whether he was referring to the judge's law clerk when he complained to reporters about "a person who’s very partisan sitting alongside" the judge. Engoron had barred Trump from talking about his court staff after Trump smeared the clerk on social media.

Trump said under oath he was talking about Cohen, but Engoron found his answer "not credible" and fined him $10,000.

The last time Trump testified in depth during a trial was in a civil case in Chicago in 2013. The Associated Press described his testimony at the time as “sometimes prickly, sometimes boastful.”

“I don’t want to be braggadocious: I build great buildings,” he said during his two days on the stand in the case, in which he was accused of duping an 87-year-old woman in a condo bait-and-switch at a Trump building in Chicago. The jury found in his favor.

Trump also is set to stand trial in four criminal cases next year: the federal classified documents case; the Fulton County, Georgia, election interference case; the Washington, D.C., election interference case; and the Manhattan district attorney's inquiry into hush money payments to Stormy Daniels.

At least one other former president has testified in court after having left office — Teddy Roosevelt did so twice.

The 26th president was a plaintiff in a civil suit against a Michigan newspaper that had accused him of being a drunk in 1913. The second was a civil case in which Roosevelt was sued by a New York Republican Party boss he’d accused of being corrupt. Roosevelt won both cases. 

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Trump testifies in civil fraud case after Eric and Don Jr. took the stand last week - NBC News
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