Uh-Oh: Eric Trump Stumbles in Key “Gotcha” Moment in Fraud Trial Eric Trump got a little testy on the stand Thursday—moments before he was caught lying about his knowledge regarding his father’s financial statements. After claiming that he had “never worked” on the Trump Organization’s statement of financial condition and wasn’t aware of it until the bank fraud trial “came to fruition,” the taller Trump brother admitted he was in fact aware of it dating as far back as 2013. The “gotcha” moment has big implications for how the rest of this case will unfold. Yet Eric’s contradiction to his own deposition also shines a light on the prosecution’s strategy, which has been to question his credibility without outright calling him a liar. Essentially, Eric has already revealed that his claims of having no knowledge were “at best, based on a very faulty memory and at worst, constituted deliberate falsehoods,” reported NBC News. It seems that after he claimed on the stand to have never worked on the statements, the prosecution showed a 2013 email from Eric to others in the TO that he was busy working on the statements. Uh oh.
Apparently Trump is going to try and antagonize the judge today to provoke an extreme reaction in furtherance of trying the case in the media that this is all a partisan exercise.
So Trump got massive tax breaks on Maralago with a legal agreement it would always be a club. But today he testified that the document says "intends," which he could break anytime he wanted.
Unsurprisingly, the head case can't control himself: Live updates: Donald Trump testifies in New York civil fraud trial (cnn.com) By refusing to directly answer any questions he is blatantly incriminating himself.
I decided to look at the prior decision by Engeron. Did not review the underlying cites, but he makes a clear case, especially on the "disclaimer" defense Trump went on at length. Bizarre. From the way Trump argued, I thought there was a disclaimer on the front of the financial disclosures that they could not be relied upon. Judge said he already ruled otherwise. That was an extended exchange between Trump and the judge, with Trump saying he didn't think he could get sued or worry about the accuracy of the disclosures because of the legal disclaimers. I had to admit, reading it cold, that I thought that a disclaimer would be a possible defense to fraud, especially at the summary judgment stage (the lawyers will understand). What I didn't realize until reading the opinion is that the disclaimers were from the accountants (Mazars), not Trump. Their disclaimers were that Mazars could not verify the information independently and relied on the Trump organization for the accuracy of the statements. Trump argued that created a defense for him! Wow. https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/trump-judges-ruling/ce6de7d636227e1b/full.pdf
Maybe someone shouldn't be president who traffics in lies backed with shady disclaimers and a never-ending desire to exploit loopholes in the law to his own benefit.
And yet someone just like that is currently the leading presidential candidate for nomination of one of the country’s 2 major parties
The accountants are disclaiming the statements which means that the representations therein are management’s representations which the accountants do not stand behind. That does not mean that the accountants have said the statements are false; just that they have not tested them according to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. But if an entity submit them in support of loans, taxes etc., they are still representations of the entity’s management. And if a loan is made or taxes paid based on the numbers, that is causation
. If the pools are right, Our country isn’t smart enough to reject someone like that. It is so polarized and so behind his cult of personality that they would elect him anyway. But Those emails! The GOP has some good options— Nicky Haley for one— but the party is so far to the right now we won’t see her.
Of course. The point I was trying to make, clumsily, is that reading Trump’s testimony, it sounded like the Trump Organization disclaimed. That didn’t make sense to me - I thought it was another Deutschbank situation where they were papering a file but were making a loan no underwriting would ever approve based on other considerations, i.e., Moscow. But still, banking negligence or international considerations aside, that did sound like a defense. He said again and again that HE couldn’t be liable for fraud because reliance was disclaimed. It wasn’t until I read the decision I realized it was Mazars disclaimer
trump’s mental condition has deteriorated into make-believe-land. Says he won all 50 states. At least he got the number of states in the US correct. Will the marks swallow this?
Said it before if the Republicans/Trump try to make Biden's cognitive ability an issue in the presidential election all the Democrats/Biden campaign have to do is to put together an ad campaign using Trump's own speeches, interviews and social media posts.
LOL ... he sounds like moron but I'm going give him the benefit of doubt that he's saying he won all 50 states in the 2020 republican primary ... after several states cancelled their primary and named him the winner ... I looked it up, the last time an incumbent president didn't win all 50 states in a primary was 1980, when Carter lost one state, his challenger's home state. Hardly something to brag about ...
If Trump tries to use that line in the general election the Democrats should point out as you mentioned that a number of state Republican parties cancelled their primaries. While there was absolutely no way that Trump would have lost any primaries back in 2020 I think the Republicans wanted to avoid the potential embarrassment of one or more primaries in which a challenger to Trump ended up with more than 20% of the vote.
