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Today will be closing arguments in Donald Trump's civil fraud case in New York. And earlier this week, Trump announced that he would like to speak as part of that process. This is not the usual procedure, but it's not unheard of, either.
Unfortunately for the former president, Judge Arthur Engoron was not born yesterday, and he has a pretty good idea of what Trump was planning to say. So, Engoron agreed to the request, but with strict conditions. Trump would have been allowed to talk about the evidence, or the applicability of state law to that evidence. What Trump would not have been allowed to do is try to introduce new evidence, talk about anything remotely related to politics, engage in personal attacks against the Court and its staff, or engage in personal attacks against New York AG Letitia James. In order to make certain that these rules were observed, Engoron further decreed that both Trump and lead counsel Chris Kise would be required to sign a document laying out the stipulations. Further, the Judge said that if his terms were violated, Trump would be removed from the courtroom and would pay a fine of "not less than $50,000."
Faced with this, Trump declined Engoron's terms. Officially, per Kise, the reason is that the terms were "fraught with ambiguities." Uh, huh. In any event, the former president will be in court today, but he won't be speaking on his own behalf. That should allow them to wrap things up pretty quickly. And since Engoron has had plenty of time to think things through, and probably to draft a version of his final decision, maybe an announcement will come next week. It would be very poetic timing if this decision and the presidential immunity decision came down on the same day. (Z)