On Monday morning, Donald Trump returned to lower Manhattan for the first of the many trials he’s facing up and down the country. Outside the grand old New York State Supreme Courthouse at 60 Centre Street, Foley Square was blocked off, and there was a large battery of TV cameras and arc lights. Inside the courthouse, there was another press area directly outside Courtroom 300, where Judge Arthur Engoron was presiding over the opening day of a civil trial brought by the New York attorney general, Letitia James, who has accused Trump of committing business fraud.
As a civil defendant, Trump had no legal obligation to show up, but he had evidently decided that a personal appearance would serve his defense and his political position, which is that he is the innocent victim of a Democratic “witch hunt.” When he got to the courtroom, flanked by lawyers and Secret Service agents, he paused at the press pen to repeat that phrase for the hundred-millionth time. Repeating himself again, he called Engoron a “rogue judge”and described James as “a racist.” The entire case is “a scam and a sham,” the ex-President declared angrily before walking into the courtroom. James, for her part, stopped on her way into the courthouse to remind everyone that “no one is above the law.”
Engoron, a white-haired seventy-four year-old, who, like Trump, is a native of Queens, got things going by saying that the trial would probably last until the week of Christmas, and added that he would try to keep in check his penchant for telling lame jokes. The trial is an unusual one. There is no jury, which Trump claims is “unfair”—although it was up to his lawyers to request one, and then they didn’t. Engoron also preëmptively decided the main issue in the case last week: at a pretrial hearing, he ruled in agreement with James that the defendants—Trump, his two eldest sons, and some of his top executives—committed “persistent and repeated” fraud by inflating the value of Trump assets on financial statements they submitted to banks and other financial institutions. The judge also cancelled business licenses that authorize Trump businesses to operate in New York. This raised the possibility of Trump losing control of some of his prize assets, including Trump Tower, and being effectively drummed out of the state, although Engoron deferred making a definitive decision about what will happen to the Trump properties.
Delivering the government’s opening statement, the attorney Kevin Wallace asked the court to bar the defendants from serving as officers of any business in New York. This is one of the remaining legal issues to be decided at the trial, along with allegations that the Trumps and their associates falsified business records, issued false financial statements, and committed insurance fraud. The court also has to decide on any financial penalties.
Trump had two lawyers flanking him at the defense table, and they both presented opening statements. Chris Kise, a slick former solicitor general for Florida, told the judge his team would present evidence that the asset valuations on Trump’s financial statements were reasonable and complied with government regulations. Kise also stressed that the banks which lent money to Trump, including Deutsche Bank, did their own independent valuations. Then came Alina Habba, a New Jersey native who started working for Trump in 2021 and defends him on cable news shows. Habba said that James, who was sitting in the front row of the court, had come into office determined to “get Trump.” She also claimed that some of Trump’s properties were worth far more than the values listed on his financial statements. “Mar-a-Lago, at least a billion,” she said, sounding an awful lot like her client.
The Trump lawyers also made clear that they are going to appeal Engoron’s ruling from last week. Habba brought up the fact that Trump’s financial statements contained a disclaimer saying the properties might not fetch the stated values in a market transaction. Kise pointed to an earlier appeals-court ruling and said it had decided that many of the instances when Trump allegedly inflated the price of his assets took place beyond the statute of limitations. Engoron explained that he had rejected both these legal arguments already, but Kise persisted, saying the judge had issued his rulings before hearing all the evidence. “There is a lot more to this story,” he said. “There are layers to this.”
There certainly are. One of them is the Trump legal team’s effort to create grounds for its appeal. Another is Trump’s determination to exploit the case for his political ends and turn it into a media circus. He knows his poll ratings among G.O.P. primary voters have risen sharply since his first criminal indictment earlier this year. He’s also aware of the force field he creates simply by appearing in person. As I was returning to the courthouse after lunch, a young woman saw my press pass and stopped me in the rotunda. “Is he here?” she asked without saying a name. I said that he was up on the third floor. “That’s so wild,” she said. “I’m stuck here doing jury duty and he’s right here.”
Back in the courtroom, the prosecution called its first witness: Donald Bender, an owlish and balding older man who spent forty-one years at the accounting firm Mazars, twenty-three of them as a partner. He described how he oversaw the compiling of annual statements of financial condition for the Trump Organization based on figures largely provided by Trump employees. Before Bender even got to testify, Kise stood up and objected to some supporting documents being presented as evidence. Kise said he intended to object to virtually all the attorney general’s documents because they fell outside of the statute of limitations. Engoron listened quietly to his argument, and then said, “Overruled.”
It looks like there is going to be another three months of this legal sparring and political posturing. Along the way, the court is set to hear testimony from Trump’s former fixer, Michael Cohen, as well as Eric Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., and Trump himself. ♦
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