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(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
It’s been a wild day for Donald Trump in New York, even though he already got bored with his civil fraud trial and hopped a flight back to Florida. Or perhaps his lawyers sensed that the former president was close to melting down in open court and sent him home to cool off. In any event, after telling a federal judge in Florida that he could not possibly be deposed this week because he’d be in court elsewhere, Trump was back at Mar-a-Lago for dinner Wednesday.
Last night, his lawyers appealed Justice Arthur Engoron’s grant of partial summary judgment last week, in which the court found that Trump and his company engaged in persistent fraud. Unsurprisingly, the Trump family would like the appeals court to overturn the ruling that puts all their assets in receivership and dissolves their license to do business.
For his part, Justice Engoron would like the defendants not to move assets out of the jurisdiction — a very real possibility from parties who incorporated a Delaware LLC called Trump Organization II the same day the instant action was filed. This morning the court ordered the defendants to tell retired Judge Barbara Jones, special monitor to the stars, about: the planned transfer of assets in any jurisdiction; the creation of any new business entity to hold Trump’s assets; and all communications with lenders, insurance companies, or business partners regarding those assets.
In the courtroom, things were little better. After two days in which Trump’s lawyers berated his former accountants on the witness stand in a vain attempt to make them take the blame for the bad information their client fed them, the former Trump Org executive Jeff McConney conceded on the witness stand that Trump himself had final approval on the numbers submitted to the accountants, who used the data to compile his financial statements.
And then this morning Trump moved for dismissal of the criminal indictment charging him with making false business records to cover up the 2016 hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels. According to reports from CNN and ABC, the argument appears to be twofold.
First, Trump claims that he “cannot be said to have falsified business records of the Trump Organization by paying his personal attorney using his personal bank accounts.” The theory here seems to be that Trump used his personal checking account and the account for his revocable trust to make payments denominated as “retainers,” but the checks didn’t come from the Trump Organization, so they are not false business records.
The statement of facts accompanying the indictment tells a slightly different story:
Each check was processed by the Trump Organization, and each check was disguised as a payment for legal services rendered in a given month of 2017 pursuant to a retainer agreement. The payment records, kept and maintained by the Trump Organization, were false New York business records. In truth, there was no retainer agreement, and Lawyer A was not being paid for legal services rendered in 2017. The Defendant caused his entities’ business records to be falsified to disguise his and others’ criminal conduct.
Trump’s other argument in favor of dismissal is that it violates due process to try him in the middle of an electoral campaign.
“The indictment was filed six years after the conduct at issue, more than four-and-a-half years after DANY began to investigate it, and more than three years after DANY started presenting evidence to a grand jury,” he claims, adding, “The delay has prejudiced President Trump, interfered with his ongoing presidential campaign, and violated his due process rights.”
The petition goes before Justice Juan Merchan, who has thus far been unimpressed with Trump’s imprecations.
Meanwhile on Truth Social:
The ridiculous A.G. case against me in New York, brought by the Racist and Incompetent Peekaboo James, is being studied and mocked all over the World. Companies are Fleeing! It, and the highly political, Trump Hating Judge, are DESTROYING the Image and Reputation of the New York State Legal System & Courts. I don’t even get a Jury! All of this while MURDERS & VIOLENT CRIME HIT UNIMAGINABLE RECORDS! This is sooo bad for New York. HELP! The respected Commercial Division, where it should have been sent in the first place, must take over this “sh.. show.”
Trump urges New York judge to dismiss hush money charges [CNN]
Trump seeks dismissal of charges in Stormy Daniels hush money case [ABC]
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics and appears on the Opening Arguments podcast.
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