TRUMP BLOWS A GASKET

The trials of Donald J. Trump began Today in a New York courtroom, where he arrived to fight a civil fraud case that imperils his company and threatens his image as a master of the business world.

Trump was livid, and totally out of control outside of the Manhattan courtroom where his fraud trial got underway on Monday. Opening statements by the state of New York were kept simple. No new evidence was revealed, but Trump was literally physically nudging his lawyers and urging them to fight back in court.

The idea that Trump missed out on a jury trial because his lawyers forgot to check a box was amusing, but not really surprising given that Trump hasn’t attracted top-tier lawyers to represent him. The trial obviously means the world to Trump, and it will get more intense as the state’s evidence is presented, but today was not that day.

The trial’s opening day brought Trump face-to-face with one of his longest-running antagonists: the attorney general of New York, Letitia James, who filed the case against him, his adult sons and their family business. The judge overseeing the trial could impose an array of punishments on Mr. Trump, including a $250 million penalty. That would not be tax-deductible, and Trump’s inability to pay will demonstrate now much Not A Billionaire he is.

The case has struck a nerve with Trump since the claims portray him as a cheat rather than a captain of industry and undercut an image he constructed while he catapulted from real estate to reality television fame and ultimately the White House.

Trump sat at the defense table like a truculent pre-teen brought up before the principal, arms crossed and scowling, occasionally rolling his eyes at the judge and yawning during the duller portions of the proceeding.

Trump, who was mostly quiet at the defense table, spoke before cameras multiple times on Monday, accusing James of bringing the case to interfere with the 2024 election.

“You ought to go after this attorney general,” he said, without specifying who or how. He said of Justice Engoron "This is a judge that should be disbarred. This is a judge that should be out of office.” Trump told reporters at the courthouse that the case against him was “a witch hunt, it’s a disgrace.”

"It all comes down from the DOJ. They totally coordinate this in Washington.”

"They're trying to damage me so I that I don't do as well as I'm doing in the election," he said.

Trump, the 2024 GOP presidential frontrunner, also said before the trial that "there was no crime," and added that "the crime is against me."

Justice Engoron ruled last week that the former president had persistently committed fraud, deciding that no trial was needed to determine the claim at the core of the lawsuit.

The heart of Trump’s defense is that everyone knows what a complete liar he is and that his annual financial statements were merely estimates, so they made their own valuations. “Valuing real estate is more art than science.” The banks to which Mr. Trump submitted his statements, his lawyers argued, were hardly victims: They made money from their dealings with Mr. Trump and did not rely on his estimates.

New York AG James said in a short statement before the trial: "For years, Donald Trump falsely inflated his net worth to enrich himself and cheat the system. My message is simple: No matter how powerful you are, no matter how much money you think you may have, no one is above the law."

Trump thought that all of the networks would cover his every movement and he even talked to reporters outside of the courtroom where he managed to harm his own case by attacking the judge and prosecutor.

Here’s the complete rant he gave outside the court at the conclusion of the day:

“I guess today he ruled that we lost a big part of the case because he’s a Democrat club politician. He’s a Democrat operative, and he’s a disgrace to people that call themselves judges. And I hope my lawyers go in and I hope they fight him very hard because this guy is getting away with murder and his clerk should not be allowed to be in his ear on every single question, you take a look at what’s happening with her. She hates Trump more than he does.

“So that’s where it is. We have 80% of this trial has been won in June. They came down the end of June with a decision, a very powerful decision and it said on statute of limitations and just about everything else, would you say approximately 80% of the trial attorneys? Is that right? Approximately 80% of the trials won. He refuses to acknowledge his own appellate division.

“And I think it’s a disgrace to our country and somebody has to fight because if you don’t fight, our country is just going to go down the tube. This is election interference. This guy is a highly partisan person and we can’t let this stuff happen. So you should ask yourselves as professionals. I have a lot of respect for you, not all of you, but a lot of you. Why is it that he didn’t honor the decision of the appellate? And by the way, I believe it was a unanimous decision, right? It’s a five-to-nothing decision, unanimous decision. And he said I’m not going to honor it. Let’s go to trial. There is a judge that should be disbarred. This is a judge that should be out of office. This is a judge that some people say could be charged criminally for what he is doing.

“This is a continuation of the single biggest witch hunt of all times. We have a rogue judge who rules that a property is a tiny infraction, and we have a racist attorney general who is a horror show on the basis that she would get Trump before she knew anything about me and she used this to run for governor and failed. She had no following and came back and said, I will go back to get Trump again, and this what we have. It is a scam and a sham. Just so you know that my financial statements are phenomenal, and they are actually less in terms of the numbers used –

(The transcription cuts off because that is the point where CNN cut him off in midsentence. Fox News covered him live and so did Newsmax. Trump went on for an additional six minutes and got zero mainstream coverage.)

As usual, 99% of what he says is a lie and the remaining 1% is illegible.

Trump is enraged because he is losing the trial. The Lifetime Failure former president is also upset because his fraud has been exposed. The meltdown went on for minutes with Trump rambling about the judge in the New York case, Jack Smith, Fani Willis, Letitia James, with the broader point being that Trump is outraged at being held accountable.

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