Trump returns to NYC fraud trial, trashing judge and Attorney General James as ‘radical lunatic’
NEW YORK — Donald Trump reappeared on Tuesday at his New York City fraud trial, resuming his verbal and social media attacks on authorities before making his way into the courtroom.
The Republican frontrunner returned after missing more than a week of testimony, with Donna Kidder still on direct examination. The assistant controller at the Trump Organization is expected to shed light on internal bookkeeping at the company and how the annual financial statements central to the case came together.
Trump walked into court with a forlorn expression just before 10 a.m. flanked by his attorneys, Chris Kise and Alina Habba, glancing briefly at state Attorney General Tish James seated in the front row.
The former president derided James and the presiding judge in comments to reporters outside before taking his seat in court, describing the sweeping fraud case against him and his top executives as “a witch hunt by a radical lunatic attorney general.”
“We built a great company — a lot of cash, it’s got a lot of great assets, some of the greatest real estate assets, anywhere in the world,” Trump charged.
Trump is under two gag orders, with D.C. Judge Tanya Chutkan, presiding over his Jan. 6 case, on Monday ruling that he can no longer intimidate potential witnesses and threaten Special Counsel Jack Smith or his family and staff.
Donna Kidder, assistant controller at The Trump Organization, is pictured arriving at Manhattan Supreme Court on Tuesday, October 17, 2023. (Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Daily News) It followed a limited gag order Judge Arthur Engoron issued two days into his fraud trial when Trump last appeared, barring him and everyone involved in the case from commenting publicly about his court staff. That order came after Trump went after his principal law clerk, Allison Greenfield, on Truth Social. Trump hasn’t violated it, though he has continued to target Engoron and AG James in bitter public remarks.
In an early-morning Truth Social post, he aimed at Engoron, writing, “I can’t have a JURY and am being viciously tried under a Statute that has never been used before. The Radical Left Democrat Judge, WHO IS HIGHLY POLITICAL, serves as Judge, Jury, and everything else. America cannot let this happen.”
Engoron has already ruled that Trump and his codefendants are liable for the AG’s top fraud claim, finding in a scathing ruling that they ballooned the value of Trump Organization assets in statements to banks and lenders by between $812 million to $2.2 billion from 2014 to 2021. He’s hearing the case without a jury per state law. Trump’s protests about not having a panel of New Yorkers to decide his fate come despite his lawyers never requesting one.
The judge’s pretrial ruling also ordered Trump stripped of his New York business certificates, setting him up to lose control of prized properties in his real estate portfolio like Trump Tower and 40 Wall St. if upheld on appeal.
The six remaining claims Engoron will consider at the trial underway, which is expected to run through late December, mainly relate to the intent and conspiracy underlying the fraudulent statements that documented the value of Trump-owned and emblazoned properties, and thus his own.
The AG alleges he ballooned his net worth by up to $3.6 billion between 2011 and 2021 to illegally profit in loan deals and land a top spot on Forbes’ rich list. He didn’t make the top 400 in the latest Forbes list published on Oct. 3.
The AG is seeking $250 million as punishment and to permanently bar Trump, his adult sons, Eric and Don Jr., and former senior company executives Allen Weisselberg and Jeff McConney from ever heading a New York business again.
Jack Weisselberg, son of Trump’s convicted finance chief, Allen, was expected to take the stand soon after Kidder. The director of Ladder Capital — one of the Trump Org’s biggest lenders — is expected to face a grilling about his father’s role in a refinancing loan to Trump’s Wall Street skyscraper and another loan used to shell out a $25 million settlement to former students of now-defunct Trump University.
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