Judge Arthur Engoron’s decision to let Donald Trump argue, “bloviate” and shatter the normal restrictions on testimony in his Manhattan courtroom was a shrewd move according to one legal analyst who predicted the transcripts will kill any chance of a successful appeal by the former president’s lawyers.
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Speaking with MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart, legal analyst Catherine Christian agreed with the host that Trump “acted the fool” during his testimony in the $250 million financial fraud civil suit filed against him and his Trump Organization.
“This acrimonious back and forth between Judge Engoron and Trump, is this going to be a factor on appeal?” Capehart asked his guest.
“It will be a factor on appeal,” the legal analyst quickly replied. “But what Judge Engoron did, I thought very well, when Donald Trump acted a fool at the beginning, the judge was getting upset and engaging with him, and then suddenly stopped and let him — let Donald Trump just go on and bloviate and say irrelevant things.”
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“Why? Because there was not a jury there,” she continued. “There was no jury that you had to protect from hearing prejudicial irrelevant testimony. In a jury trial, the judge would have to constantly have the jury removed from the room, and warned the defendant. In this case, I think the judge decided, ‘Do you know what? There is no jury here. I’m the decider, I’ll let the defendant go on and on, to a limit. and so he can’t say on appeal I was cut down, I wasn’t allowed to say what I wanted to say,’ because the appellate court will look and see what actually the defendant said, and most of it was irrelevant.”
“It was just a puffing up his brand, as his kids did, when they were called as witnesses on their own case,” she added. “So the judge, very wisely, just let him go: there is no jury here, I don’t have to worry about the jury, let him go.”
