By Rachel Schilke. Media: Washingtonexaminer
Former President Donald Trump will not testify in the New York civil fraud trial against him on Monday.
The president announced in a post to Truth Social that he will not take the witness stand as expected, calling Judge Arthur Engoron “biased” and blasting the New York Attorney General’s office and President Joe Biden’s campaign for “election interference.”
“BASED ON THE ABOVE, AND THE FACT THAT OUR UNASSAILABLE FINAL EXPERT WITNESS HAS BEEN SO STRONG AND IRREFUTABLE IN HIS TESTIMONY, WHICH WILL CONCLUDE ON TUESDAY, & THAT I HAVE ALREADY TESTIFIED TO EVERYTHING & HAVE NOTHING MORE TO SAY OTHER THAN THAT THIS IS A COMPLETE & TOTAL ELECTION INTERFERENCE (BIDEN CAMPAIGN!) WITCH HUNT, THAT WILL DO NOTHING BUT KEEP BUSINESSES OUT OF NEW YORK, I WILL NOT BE TESTIFYING ON MONDAY. MAGA!
Trump’s decision to not testify comes almost 11 hours after Trump said he would go back on the witness stand. The former president had been scheduled to testify as one of the defense’s final witnesses in the $250 million civil fraud trial that has lasted two months.
The former president already testified on Nov. 6, pushing back on New York Attorney General Letitia James’s claims that he dramatically overvalued his properties to get favorable loans from banks. Trump has launched attacks against both James and Engoron, calling James a “political hack” and Engoron a “very hostile judge” in previous posts.
Trump was under no obligation to testify on his own behalf, as he is the defendant. His son, Eric Trump, similarly backed out of testifying against last Wednesday. Eric Trump had already testified once as a witness in early November.
After appearing at the trial last Thursday as a spectator, Trump attorney Alina Habba told reporters that the former president was “looking forward to taking the stand.” Habba said she had urged him not to testify due to a gag order in place that prevented him from criticizing Engoron’s law clerk, but Trump was committed because “he is so firmly against what is happening in this court.”
“He will open himself up to whatever they want because he’s not afraid. People that are afraid cower. President Trump doesn’t cower,” she said via NBC News.
The “unassailable final expert witness” mentioned in Trump’s Sunday post refers to Eli Bartov, an accounting professor at New York University, who testified last week that James’s case had no merit and he did not discover any evidence of fraud in the former president’s financial statements. He is the 19th and last defense witness to be called.
During the trial, Bartov acknowledged on the stand that he’s been paid $875,000 to date by the Trump Organization and Trump’s Save America PAC for his work on the case. When asked if that impacted his testimony, he said, “No.”
The attorney general’s office is expected to call two rebuttal witnesses to the stand once Bartov’s testimony is over. James’s team was expected to continue its cross-examination of Bartov after Trump took the stand. Closing arguments are expected to begin on Jan. 11.
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