2024-01-11 21:14:00
Tirade in front of the judges Trump gives an angry speech in court
Jan 11, 2024, 10:14 p.m. Listen to article
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In the trial over allegations of financial fraud, Trump wants to give his final speech himself. The judge responsible forbids him from doing so. No reason for Trump to stay quiet. He makes an angry speech that turns into an election campaign appearance. When the judge interrupts him, Trump cuts him off.
Former US President Donald Trump has once again turned a courtroom into a campaign stage with an angry speech. In his New York trial on allegations of financial fraud, Trump vehemently attacked prosecutors, accusing them of trying to prevent him from returning to the White House. “They want to make sure I never win again,” he said, referring to the November presidential election.
With his tirade, the right-wing populist ignored warnings from judge Arthur Engoron not to give a campaign speech. When the judge tried to interrupt Trump, he replied: “You have your own agenda, you can’t even listen for more than a minute.” Engoron then asked Trump’s lawyer to “control his client.”
The closing arguments had begun in the civil trial. Trump wanted to make the plea himself, but was denied this by Engoron – after the ex-president refused to accept the judge’s stated restrictions on the content of his own plea. With his decision, Engoron wanted to prevent Trump from giving a “campaign speech” in court. But that’s exactly what happened after the judge allowed the defendant to add a few comments of his own to his lawyer’s plea.
Trump sees himself as an “innocent man”
Trump then immediately launched an angry attack against New York State Attorney General Letitia James, who was sitting behind him in the room. He accused her of “hating” him and wanting to prevent his election success. He described himself as an “innocent man” who was unjustly persecuted. Chief investigator James belongs to President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party.
When he arrived at the New York courthouse, Trump took the opportunity to present himself to reporters as a victim of a politically exploited justice system. He described the process as “election interference of the highest degree.” The 77-year-old has repeatedly used his court dates for campaign-like appearances. Trump wants to challenge incumbent Biden in the November election. The months-long primaries by Trump’s Republicans to choose their presidential candidate begin on Monday in the state of Iowa. Trump is well ahead of his internal party rivals in the polls.
In the New York civil lawsuit, Trump and his sons Donald Junior and Eric are accused of artificially inflating the assets of the family real estate empire over the years in order to get better conditions for loans and insurance. Trump and his children face a large fine in the case, but no prison sentence. Attorney General James is demanding a fine of $370 million (338 million euros). Trump and his relatives should never again be allowed to run companies in the real estate industry in the state.
Trump has further problems with the judiciary
In his plea, Trump’s lawyer Chris Kise questioned whether any false statements made by the Trump companies were intentional. There is “no clear and existing evidence” for this. The “conclusion that there was fraud” cannot be derived from the companies’ financial statements.
Trump has other problems with the judiciary. There are four criminal charges against him, including attempts to manipulate the election after his defeat by Biden in November 2020 and taking secret files from the White House. Because of Trump’s role in the storming of the Capitol in Washington in January 2021, there are also efforts in several states to exclude him from the primaries – the US Supreme Court plans to deal with the dispute over his participation in the primary elections at the beginning of February.
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