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Donald Trump to testify in NY AG Case [1]

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Date: 2023-10-27  

The New York Attorney General, Letitia James, has announced that Donald Trump will testify in his fraud trial on November 6. The news was a second blow for the serial indictee after Judge Arthur Engoron denied daughter Ivanka’s attempt to dodge testifying in the case. She will take her place in the line of familial witnesses after brothers Don Jr. and Eric squirm in the box starting November 1.

Even though Boss Trump will be called to testify as part of the plaintiff’s case, he will assuredly be treated as a hostile witness. This will allow the AG’s lawyers to ask closed-ended questions mandating a yes or no answer. No doubt he will attempt to speechify and obfuscate. But expect the Judge to derail his oratory and demand he stick to the point — under threat of contempt.

He may want to take the fifth with an eye to his criminal exposure in his falsifying business records case brought by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg. But it is a pointless exercise. The judge can make an adverse inference (assume he is hiding illegal acts). The AG already has his deposition. And a non-responsive strategy will only increase what is now an inevitable financial penalty.

Roy Cohn and his star pupil

Any number is theoretically possible, but the $250 million ask by James now seems more like a floor than a ceiling. Especially, as Trump has pursued the scorched earth strategy he learned at Roy Cohn’s knee. The problem with that aggressive nihilism is that, while it worked in the small-ball cases brought by sundry victims of his inveterate chiseling, he is now facing major league heat. And he has an old man's swing.

The evidence and the Judge’s comments presage a significant penalty for Trump. His only sensible course would be to try and negotiate a settlement with the state. But two factors doom that course. One, the cost James will demand to close the case will be so high that Trump may as well risk a Hail Mary. Two, the man is so convinced of his own ability, he probably believes he has the goods to keep his Titanic afloat.

I suspect that Trump’s time on the stand will make Captain Queeg look like a high-caliber witness in his own defense. Can you imagine the man who cannot finish a sentence in the friendly confines of an adoring MAGA rally, trying to maintain mental cohesion in the face of an unrelenting attack on a courtroom battlefield?

It is too bad the proceedings will not be televised. If they were, Trump’s adoring horde would see a man as defeated as the “yellow rat” Rocky Sullivan (James Cagney) on his way to the chair at the end of “Angels with Dirty Faces (start at 0:46 if you want to save time)

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