Remember how some folks wouldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton because they thought a woman would be too emotionally fragile for the presidency? That woman sat through DAYS of grilling.
Meanwhile Donald Trump never agreed to sit before a single hearing about January 6 OR his other impeachment. And now that he’s in a courtroom — one of his many ongoing legal battles — he can’t handle the heat!
This particular trial is New York’s suit against Trump and the Trump Org for $250 million. They’re claiming he and the company (and his adult sons) committed financial fraud, lying about the value of their holdings to cheat banks and their taxes. Trump has been pulling his classic schtick, accusing everyone of being biased against him, it’s an all-caps WITCH HUNT, etc. The thing is, that doesn’t fly in a courtroom. Nor does, specifically, targeting specific witnesses or members of the court. Considering how some of his followers like to get violent, judges are right to be upset when Trump spotlights servants of the court especially.
Related: Melania ‘Quietly’ Renegotiated Her Prenup Amid Donald’s Legal Problems!
That’s what happened on Wednesday. Last week Trump maligned Judge Arthur Engoron‘s law clerk Allison Greenfield on his campaign site. Trump’s argument essentially is that anyone who isn’t a diehard Trump Republican must be biased against him. (Oh, and some MAGA supporters are biased against him too — like the ones in Georgia who told him the vote count was accurate and Joe Biden won.) Anyway, Judge Engoron wasn’t going to stand for his innocent clerk’s name being smeared, so he fined Trump $5,000. Hey, he’d already been warned — he had a gag order on him!
So during lunch Trump went after her again, we guess thinking he could get away with it if he didn’t say her name specifically? He told reporters:
“This judge is a very partisan judge, with a person who’s very partisan sitting alongside of him, perhaps even much more partisan than he is.”
Judge Engoron wouldn’t put up with that. He forced Trump to take the stand for about a minute or so and grilled him on the comment. Trump denied he was talking about Greenfield (who was the only person sitting next to His Honor, btw). The judge didn’t buy it, however — telling Trump his testimony was “not credible” — and fined him ANOTHER $10,000. Not only that, he told him if this went on, the punishments would get “worse”.
Again, Trump already has a gag order in place specifically because of this behavior! This is a real court of law, not Twitter and certainly not X. He can’t say anything he wants, there are rules. And if he pushes enough times, one of these judges is going to throw his ass in jail like they do with real people.
Let’s never forget that Trump — as both a political figure AND a wealthy elite — has always gotten the kid-glove treatment, whether he whines about being treated unfairly or not.
OK so fast-forward just a couple hours and you have Michael Cohen testifying. Apparently his testimony was inconsistent with what he told Congress — something about whether Trump himself had explicitly instructed him to commit fraud or whether it had always been CFO Allen Weisselberg. When Cohen backtracked on his previous testimony, Trump’s legal team pounced. But they overstepped.
Defense attorney Clifford Robert motioned for a directed verdict, arguing Cohen’s inconsistent testimony was grounds for dismissal of the entire case. Judge Engoron swiftly denied the motion, saying Cohen was not the star witness, nor the only witness. He was quoted as telling the defense team:
“There’s enough evidence in this case to fill this courtroom.”
Ha! Like we’ve reported previously, the numbers don’t lie. Judge Engoron has already ruled that fraud took place, it’s on the books. Different values being sent to different parties — banks get an inflated amount, the government gets a deflated one — is impossible to argue with. It’s in writing. So yeah, this case is NOT getting dismissed because Michael Cohen can’t keep his stories straight. He was Trump’s right-hand man for years, of course he can’t keep his stories straight.
Anyway, that apparently was too much for Donny. The former POTUS stormed out of the courtroom! One reporter on the scene tweeted that his Secret Service agents were “chasing after him” — and that it did NOT seem like some staged, dignified walkout either. They said it seemed “completely unexpected and surprising to his own attorneys.” Wow.
Is all this getting to him? He’s got this trial, the Georgia RICO case, in which three of his fellow defendants have already flipped and pleaded guilty, the federal election interference case, AND the document handling case in Florida. Oh, and lest we forget just a couple months back he was legally declared to be a rapist by the judge in the E. Jean Carroll case. So it’s a lot of legal trouble, no wonder he’s stressed!
Kinda seems like someone should take that whole running-for-president thing off his plate, right?
What do YOU think of Trump’s tantrum??
[Image via MEGA/WENN.]
