NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump stated Sunday he has determined in opposition to testifying for a second time at his New York civil fraud trial, posting on social media that he “VERY SUCCESSFULLY & CONCLUSIVELY” testified final month and noticed no want to seem once more.
Trump had been anticipated to return to the witness stand Monday because the final large protection witness within the trial in New York Legal professional Common Letitia James‘ lawsuit. The case threatens Trump’s actual property empire and cuts to the center of his picture as a profitable businessman.
Trump introduced he was canceling his testimony in an all-capital letters, multipart assertion on his Fact Social platform, writing: “I WILL NOT BE TESTIFYING ON MONDAY.”
“I HAVE ALREADY TESTIFIED TO EVERYTHING & HAVE NOTHING MORE TO SAY,” Trump wrote, including his oft-repeated declare that James and different Democrats have weaponized the authorized system to hinder his possibilities at retaking the White Home.
Trump was typically defiant and combative when he testified on Nov. 6. Together with defending his wealth and denying wrongdoing, he repeatedly sparred with the choose, whom he criticized as an “extraordinarily hostile choose,” and slammed James as “a political hack.”
Trump answered questions from state legal professionals for about 3½ hours, typically responding with prolonged diatribes. His verbose solutions irked the choose, Arthur Engoron, who admonished: “This isn’t a political rally.”
Had Trump returned to the stand Monday, it could’ve been his protection legal professionals main the questioning, however state legal professionals might have cross-examined him.
James sued Trump final 12 months over what she claimed was his sample of duping banks, insurers and others by inflating his wealth on monetary statements.
Engoron dominated earlier than the trial that Trump and other defendants engaged in fraud. He ordered {that a} receiver take management of some Trump properties, however an appeals court has paused that.
The choose is now contemplating six different claims, together with allegations of conspiracy and insurance coverage fraud. James seeks penalties of greater than $300 million and needs Trump banned from doing enterprise in New York.
In current days, Trump had been insistent on testifying once more, one in every of his legal professionals stated, though a few of his earlier visits to the courthouse as a spectator have resulted in him getting fined for disparaging the choose’s legislation clerk.
The lawyer, Alina Habba, stated she had discouraged Trump from taking the stand due to the gag order that’s in place. The identical gag order was additionally in impact when he testified in November.
“He nonetheless needs to take the stand, though my recommendation is, at this level, you need to by no means take the stand with a gag order,” Habba, instructed reporters final week. “However he’s so firmly in opposition to what is occurring on this court docket and so firmly for the previous America that we all know, not this America, that he’ll take that stand on Monday.”
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