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Donald Trump’s testimony in a Manhattan court Monday at his civil fraud trial will be remembered more for his rage than for his actual testimony. Trump railed specifically against Judge Arthur Engoron and New York State Attorney General Letitia James, saying, “The fraud is on the court, not on me.” Jesse Weber is an anchor on the Law and Crime Network; he spoke on 710 WOR’s Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning program about Trump’s strategy and suggested that Trump was grandstanding for the people outside the courtroom, not the judge inside it.
“Trump is not going into this trial trying to win it,” Weber told Berman and Riedel. “He’s not trying to convince jury members that he’s innocent. This is all in front of a judge who’s going to decide this, and this is a judge, as we’ve talked about, who’s already ruled against Trump massively. So, he reiterated a lot of the things that the judge has already rejected, but he doesn’t care. It’s not about this case; it’s about the bigger, overall political issue. In my opinion, that’s what we saw yesterday.”
Still, the very real possibility exists that Trump could lose the trial, albeit not for several years on appeal. Weber says that’s why Trump’s gamble has to pay off in political capital. “It could very well be possible he loses control, but appeals take years, too, and so this could be litigated for years to come. It’s not the position Donald Trump and his family want to be in, particularly now, with an election coming forward. It’s a problem for Donald Trump, and that is why he, I think, can make a successful argument that everybody is coming after him right now, as it looks like he’s going to be the nominee and potentially the next President of the United States.”
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