Closing arguments in Trump’s civil fraud trial in New York

Donald Trump brought the campaign trail to the courthouse during closing arguments of his $370 million New York civil fraud trial on Thursday, delivering campaign speeches both inside and outside the courtroom to attack the case against him and the attorney general who brought it.

Trump’s decision to launch into a monologue at the conclusion of his lawyers’ closing arguments reflected the fact that the civil fraud trial is a serious threat to Trump’s business and brand – New York Attorney General Letitia James is seeking to bar Trump from doing business in the state – as well as how Trump is eager to take advantage of the situation as he runs for president.

Judge Arthur Engoron has already found Trump is liable for fraud in the civil case, and he plans to issue a full decision by the end of the month.

Here are key takeaways from the final day of the trial:

Trump finds a way to be heard in court: The former president effectively delivered the same speech in multiple locations on Thursday: The cameras outside the courtroom, to Engoron inside court and at his 40 Wall Street property in the afternoon to reporters. Notably, the most important time he gave his speech was where there were no cameras: Inside the courtroom. “This was a political witch hunt,” Trump said while speaking to Engoron in an unscheduled moment in court. “What’s happened here, sir, is a fraud on me.” Just before breaking for lunch at about 12:55 p.m. ET, Trump attorney Chris Kise renewed his request to Engoron to give Trump “two-to-three minutes” to make his case directly to the judge. Engoron addressed Trump, asking if he would promise just to comment on the facts in the case. “I think this case goes outside just the facts,” Trump responded, taking the opening to launch into a five-minute speech from the defense table. Engoron sat back for several minutes, letting Trump go on, before interrupting him to tell him his time was running short.

Attorney general maintains that Trump “acted with intent” to defraud: The attorney general’s office argued in its closing presentation that Trump “acted with intent” to fraudulently inflate the value of his assets in his financial statements. “The buck stopped with him,” said Andrew Amer, a lawyer for the attorney general’s office, saying that Trump was responsible for the conduct Trump Org. executives Allen Weisselberg and Jeff McConney participated in to inflate his assets. “Mr. Trump was certainly in the loop to review and approve the statements,” Amer said. “The court should infer that he acted with intent to defraud based on his extensive knowledge about these assets.” The attorney general’s office is seeking $370 million in its claim against Trump, alleging that his fraudulent financial statements allowed him to obtain loans and insurance at more favorable rates.

Trump’s lawyers argue case is political attack: Trump’s attorneys echoed the same themes as their client during their closing arguments, accusing the New York attorney general of a political vendetta against Trump. “This entire case is a manufactured claim to serve a political agenda,” Kise said at the outset of his presentation. “It has always been press releases and posturing, but no proof at all.” Both Kise and Alina Habba – an attorney for Trump, the Trump Org., Weisselberg and McConney – went after James personally.

Next steps in the case: Engoron said he hopes to issue a ruling by the end of January. But that is hardly going to be the end of the matter. Trump’s attorneys have already appealed Engoron’s summary judgement issued at the start of the trial, when the judge ruled Trump and his co-defendants were liable for persistent and repeated fraud. They have also made clear repeatedly during the trial they are planning to appeal the ruling, raising objections both to the case against Trump as well as the conduct of the judge and his law clerk. That means the case could stretch on, with the fate of Trump’s ability to do business in New York hanging in the balance.

Attorney General Letitia James sits in the courtroom for the civil fraud trial of former U.S. President Donald Trump in New York State Supreme Court on January 11, 2024 in New York City. 

New York Attorney General Letitia James told reporters that the personal attacks against her don’t bother her and she’s confident that “justice will be done” in the case against former President Donald Trump.

James has been the subject of multiple attacks from Trump and others since she filed the lawsuit against him, his adult sons, and his company.

“I want everyone to know that the personal attacks really don’t bother me,” James said outside the courthouse after the conclusion of the trial. “This case has never been about politics, or a personal vendetta or about name-calling. The case is about facts and the law, and Mr. Trump violated the law.”

She reminded reporters that Judge Arthur Engoron has already found that Trump violated the law for repeated fraud over a period of years.

She thanked her team, the judge, as well as the opposing counsel.

“At the end of the day the point is simple: No matter how powerful you are, no matter how rich you are, that no one is above the law. And that the law applies to all of us equally and fairly,” James added.

The New York attorney general’s office has finished its closing argument and the civil trial against former President Donald Trump has concluded.

With closing arguments complete, Judge Arthur Engoron will issue his ruling in the case, which he has said could come as soon as later this month.

Trump’s attorneys have already signaled they plan to appeal Engoron’s ruling. They previously appealed his summary judgment decision issued before the trial began that found Trump and his co-defendants were liable for persistent and repeated fraud.

Engoron’s decision is expected to include the amount of disgorgement, or “ill-gotten gains,” that the defendants would have to pay back, as well as the six additional claims brought by the attorney general in the case, including conspiracy, issuing false financial statements, falsifying business records, and insurance fraud.

In the attorney general’s conclusion, assistant Attorney General Kevin Wallace argued that Trump should be barred from doing business in the industry. Wallace ticked through the multiple sanctions the judge has levied on Trump for failing to comply with subpoenas and for violating a gag order.

The attorney general’s office is seeking a five-year ban for Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., arguing there is some “daylight” between their behavior and their father’s but that they still should be sanctioned for their role.

During conspiracy-laden remarks Thursday afternoon, former President Donald Trump accused New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office of misusing a New York fraud law to go after him and his companies.

“This is a statute, a consumer fraud statute, that has never been used for anything like this before, and it’s a shame,” Trump claimed.

Facts First: This is false. The law has been used before, even in a case against Trump University years ago. 

CNN’s Daniel Dale previously fact checked this claim in December.

He wrote: “New York Executive Law 63(12), the 1956 statute that New York Attorney General Letitia James invoked in filing the lawsuit that led to the civil trial, has been used for decades by New York attorneys general against a wide range of entities, ranging from an e-cigarette company to school bus companies to oil and gas giant ExxonMobil… In fact, it had also been used against Trump University and the Trump Foundation.”

Read more fact checks of Trump’s remark.

Judge Arthur Engoron attends the closing arguments in the Trump Organization civil fraud trial at New York State Supreme Court in the Manhattan borough of New York on Thursday.

Eric and Donald Trump Jr. have been running the company for seven years as co-CEOs, New York Attorney General office attorney Andrew Amer argued and can’t claim ignorance about their father’s financial statements.

But Judge Arthur Engoron expressed skepticism about whether the two had knowledge of fraud.

Once Trump took office and his sons took control of the Trump Organization, Amer said during his closing presentation, they also had authority to certify the financial statements for the organization’s annual loan guarantees and actively participated in Trump’s 2021 personal financial statement. Amer went through old emails shown at trial in which Eric Trump assisted the in-house accounting department with asset valuations for his father’s statements.

Amer alleged Eric Trump took steps in court to “conceal from this court that he was fully aware his father had a personal financial statement.”“They were fully aware of the deceptive schemes,” Amer said. “And approved of and perpetuated all of those schemes to perpetuate the fraud.”

Engoron then interjected to ask a pointed question about Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.: What evidence do you have — I just haven’t seen it — that they knew that there was fraud?”

Amer responded that the “stick your head in the sand” defense is not sufficient.

“If you have a responsibility, and you have the information that is within your access … and instead you claim that you stick your head in the sand and don’t do anything to fulfill that responsibility, the law says that’s not a defense,” Amer said. “And you can infer that’s an intent to defraud.”

Engoron, however, remained skeptical — particularly for Donald Trump Jr. — about his knowledge of fraud.

In this October 2023 photo, Andrew Amer, prosecutor for the New York State Attorney General, center, arrives at New York State Supreme Court in New York.

The attorney general’s office argued in its closing presentation that Donald Trump “acted with intent” to fraudulently inflate the value of his assets in his financial statements.

Amer said Trump was responsible for the conduct Trump Organization executive Allen Weisselberg and Jeff McConney participated in to inflate his assets.

Trump “clearly knew the statements were being used to get loans,” Amer said, so he had motive to inflate the assets and keep his net worth high.

“Mr. Trump was certainly in the loop to review and approve the statements,” Amer added. “The court should infer that he acted with intent to defraud based on his extensive knowledge about these assets.”

Amer noted that the size of Trump’s triplex apartment in Trump Tower was inflated on his financial statements, saying Trump “absolutely knew or could have easily ascertained” the size of his own penthouse apartment.

“He was involved in the renovation and creation of the triplex,” Amer said. “And he lives there.”

Michael Cohen, former personal lawyer to President Donald Trump, center, exits New York State Supreme Court in New York, on Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023. 

Andrew Amer, a lawyer for the New York attorney general’s office, pointed to testimony from Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, who alleged that Trump directed him and Allen Weisselberg to “reverse-engineer” his financial statements to inflate his net worth.

Amer said that the defense failed to put Trump on the stand to rebut Cohen’s claims and, as a result, Judge Arthur Engoron “should infer fairly that the reverse-engineering instructions were given by Mr. Trump just as Mr. Cohen described.”

Trump’s attorneys have argued Cohen’s testimony had no credibility after he went back on his initial statements to say Trump didn’t directly tell him to inflate the numbers.

“He tells you what he wants without specifically telling you,” Cohen said. “We understood what he wanted.”

Andrew Amer, a lawyer for the New York attorney general, is walking through the allegations of fraud in Donald Trump’s financial statements related to multiple Trump properties.

Amer and assistant attorney general Kevin Wallace showed in court a powerpoint presentation with trial testimony for each property akin to a college lecture.

“The material nature of the inflation of the assets is just so obvious,” Amer said, reminding Judge Arthur Engoron that he already ruled the “false inflation was in fact material,” in the summary judgment order before the trial began.

Amer asserted that former Trump Organization controller Jeffrey McConney, a co-defendant in the case, had to know that rent-stabilized units were worth less than unrestricted apartments when he purposely overvalued Trump Park Ave on the financial statements by falsely claiming they were not rent-stabilized.

Amer insisted McConney knew what he was doing.

Amer then moved on to Mar-a-Lago arguing that Trump valued it as a single-family residence on his financial statements, even though a deed from 2002 showed Trump could only use the property as a social club. 

Engoron again asked Amer, “How do you know he read the deed?”

Amer said McConney had it in his possession and used appraisals that referenced the deed.

Trump’s lawyers have argued Trump could convert Mar-a-Lago into a private residence in the future and that it is under-valued in the financial statements.

Attorneys for Trump and Attorney General Letitia James disagree on the burden of proof the attorney general’s office must prove in this case.

James’ legal team argues they only have to prove their claims by a “preponderance of the evidence,” or that it is more likely than not that the fraud occurred.

Trump’s lawyers say they must prove Trump and his co-defendants committed the fraud by “clear and convincing evidence” — a higher standard of proof.

But it ultimately doesn’t matter what standard Engoron rules by because the attorney general has proven the case with “overwhelming and conclusive” evidence, Amer argued Thursday afternoon.

Amer also argued that there was plenty of evidence of their intent to defraud the users of the financial statements, pointing to Trump’s triplex apartment, which the company valued at 30,000 square feet, not the actual square footage of 10,996 square feet.

Amer said Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of the Trump Org., was alerted by Forbes magazine to the error but days later signed off on the 2016 financial statement with the wrong amount, resulting in a tripling of the value of the three-story apartment.

Former President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference on Thursday in New York.

Former President Donald Trump said Thursday he would attend the E. Jean Carroll defamation trial that is set to begin next week.

“Yeah, I’m going to go to it and I’m going to explain I don’t know who the hell she is, I have no idea,” Trump told reporters in response to a question by CNN’s Kristen Holmes.

Trump held a brief media appearance Thursday afternoon as the New York attorney general’s office presented closing arguments in the civil fraud trial.

A federal judge has already ruled that the jury hearing Carroll’s defamation lawsuit will only need to decide how much money Trump will have to pay her after the judge found the former president was liable for making defamatory statements.

Carroll, a former magazine columnist, alleged Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s and then defamed her when he denied her claim.

In May, after a separate two-week trial, a jury found Trump sexually abused Carroll and defamed her when he said in 2022 that he didn’t rape her, didn’t know her and that she wasn’t his “type.”

In that case, the jury awarded Carroll $5 million in damages.

Kevin Wallace is beginning the closing arguments for the New York attorney general’s office in the $370 million civil fraud case.

“It’s obviously a great sense of de ja vu for all of us,” Wallace began. “And we’re back to hearing the same arguments from the defendants.”

Wallace said that the defendants have not been able to dispute any of the facts that Trump submitted false financial statements.

“The statements of financial condition were false, every year of issue, 2011 to 2021,” Wallace said, saying the discrepancies were as much as $2.2 billion.

Former President Donald Trump is not in attendance, having appeared at a separate press availability while the plaintiffs present their case.

Wallace went after the defense’s experts who said there was no fraud in the case, saying Trump’s legal team paid their experts to invent facts. “As you see with all of the experts, their opinions have nothing to do with the facts of this case as established in summary judgment or at trial.”

At that, Engoron challenged Wallace, asking, “Did you pay your experts?”

“I’m just making the point. Both sides paid for experts, so it proves nothing that one side did,” Engoron said.

After some back-and-forth, in which Wallace acknowledge the attorney general’s experts were paid, Wallace moved on to criticize the testimony of the defense witnesses one-by-one.

When Wallace quipped that the line-up of defense witnesses was akin to a “murderers’ row” like the 1927 New York Yankees, including friends of Trump, golfing buddies and members at Mar-a-Lago, Kise objected saying the remark was offensive.

Engoron said he would give Wallace some poetic license, asking if Wallace was being literal about Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, before allowing Wallace to proceed.

Kise interrupted Wallace on two more occasions, prompting the assistant attorney general to complain that the plaintiffs did not interject during the defense team’s presentation.