Former President Donald Trump was supposed to testify again at his New York civil fraud trial on Monday, but he made a surprise announcement Sunday that he would not be appearing.
Trump has already testified once in the trial, repeatedly barreling past questions from the New York attorney general’s office to instead attack the judge overseeing his case and the attorney general’s $250 million lawsuit against him.
The questions on Monday would have been friendlier to the former president, as he had been scheduled to testify under questioning from his own attorneys in an effort to bolster his defense against allegations he fraudulently inflated the value of his properties.
Trump’s about-face on his testimony comes as he has relentlessly attacked the civil fraud case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is seeking $250 million in damages and to bar the former president from doing business in the state.
Trump has also attacked the judge in the case, Arthur Engoron, and Engoron’s principal law clerk leading to a gag order barring talk about the clerk. The former president’s lawyers are appealing the order.
“President Trump has already testified,” Trump attorney Chris Kise said in a statement Sunday following Trump’s announcement on his social media platform that he would not testify. “There is really nothing more to say to a Judge who has imposed an unconstitutional gag order and thus far appears to have ignored President Trump’s testimony and that of everyone else involved in the complex financial transactions at issue in the case.”
While Trump is not facing criminal charges in this case, the allegations against his business are personal for the former president, and he’s spent several days attending the trial outside of his testimony.
The civil trial is a preview of what could play out next…
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