With great media coverage, the former president of the United States, Donald Trump, appeared yesterday in the New York courtroom to testify as a witness in the civil trial for corporate fraud in the Trump Organization, a process promoted by the Prosecutor’s Office, which demands compensation of 250 million dollars.
(Also read: Trump admits that he ‘looked’ at his company’s financial statements)
In the statement, Trump admitted that he “looked” at his company’s financial statements, but downplayed that fact and reproached Judge Arthur Engoron for summarily ruling against him on the fraud charge “before knowing anything” about him and their businesses.
Engoron, who from the beginning of the session had been angry at what he considered Trump’s “speeches” instead of answers, listened impassively to the angry comments of the accused, who was sitting just two meters away from him.
“You ruled against me, you said I was a fraud before you knew anything about me,” he snapped, looking directly at him, after which he maintained that “The fraud is the court” because “it did not value the properties correctly,” and boasted that he had done “a good job” as US president.
Trump brought up the valuation of public appraisers in Palm Beach County, Florida, who estimated his Mar-a-Lago mansion at about $18 million, and assured that “it is worth hundreds of millions more and all the world knows it.”
You ruled against me, you said I was a fraud before you knew anything about me.
Previously, the former president repeatedly defended that the financial condition documents on which the case is based have no value because they include a clause that warns that the data is subjective and encourages making one’s own analyzes and “not relying” on them.
That warning clause “is always respected in court, except by this particular judge,” added the accused, who assured that “if there was an error, it was not material,” but in any case “any error is covered by the clause”.
Engoron interrupted him only to invite him to “learn about the clause,” reading his opinion implicit in the ruling on persistent fraud against Trump and the other defendants, which detracts from that argument.
(Read also: Minister of Defense Iván Velásquez holds meetings in the US. What topics will he address?)
The former president also attacked the prosecutor Letitia James, sitting in the front row of the public and who has received numerous attacks, just like the judge. After several minutes of angry attacks, prosecutor Kevin Wallace, who had initially questioned the value of the company’s properties, asked him: “Is it over?”, and Trump answered briefly yes while the judge briefly smiled.
But Trump knows that this trial, which extends until December, is helping him in his intentions to be the Republican candidate for the White House in 2024. Taking the stand may continue to raise the profile of his campaign, as he has repeatedly cited this legal “danger” as a key reason why voters should return him to the Oval Office.
But not only that. A day before the trial, the polls gave revealing results.
On Sunday, polls showed that Trump was leading Democrat Joe Biden in polls in several key states one year before the election, according to The New York Times.
Polls by the newspaper and the consulting firm Siena Poll showed that the former president, the favorite of his party, leads Biden in Nevada, Georgia, Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania, and Biden narrowly won in Wisconsin; All of them are “hinge” states in which the Democrat won in the last elections.
Trump leads Biden by between three and ten points in the first five states, while Biden leads Trump by two in the last, according to the data.
Although the elections are a year away and there may be events that change the tables, these polls reflect voters’ doubts regarding Biden, especially due to his advanced age and dissatisfaction with his management of the economy.
On the other hand, they also highlight how Trump’s complicated judicial future, who is immersed in a civil trial and After facing four criminal trials, it does not seem to make a dent in his popularity.
Polls were conducted by telephone with live operators among 3,662 registered voters between October 22 and November 3. On January 15, the Republicans in Iowa and on February 3, the Democrats in South Carolina, begin the primary processes that will take place in all 50 states. They will be the starting signal for a series of primaries with key dates such as March 5, until July 15 when the Republican Party holds its convention to make the candidate official.
On August 19, the Democrats will do the same. Trump will have to defeat figures, such as Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy or Chris Christie, who so far have not managed to overshadow him nor come close to him in the polls. In the United States there is no legislation that prevents him from running for office, even if he is found guilty.
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