Principal Law Clerk Allison Greenfield, Judge Arthur Engoron pictured on Nov. 2, 2023. (Jeenah Moon/Pool Photo via AP), Donald Trump pictured outside court (Photo by Michael Nigro/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images)
On the eve of scheduled testimony in his New York civil fraud trial, former President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that he would not, in fact, testify in court, since he has “NOTHING MORE TO SAY.” The reversal came a matter of days after Trump’s lawsuit against Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron failed to keep on hold the gag orders the judge issued against him and his attorneys.
In a series of all caps Truth Social posts Sunday about the trial, his former fixer Michael Cohen, and New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), Trump said “I WILL NOT BE TESTIFYING ON MONDAY”:
Page 1: STATEMENT OF 45th PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP! AS EVERYONE KNOWS, I HAVE VERY SUCCESSFULLY & CONCLUSIVELY TESTIFIED IN THE CORRUPT, BIDEN DIRECTED, NEW YORK STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL’S RIGGED TRIAL AGAINST ME. WORLD RENOWNED EXPERTS, HIGHLY RESPECTED BANK & INSURANCE EXECUTIVES, REAL ESTATE PROFESSIONALS, AS WELL AS OTHERS, BOTH HONEST & CREDIBLE, HAVE STATED, CLEARLY & UNEQUIVOCALLY, THAT I, & MY VERY SUCCESSFUL COMPANY, DID NOTHING WRONG! MY FINANCIAL STATEMENTS WERE CONSERVATIVE, LIQUID, & “EXTRAORDINARY.” A TOP PROFESSOR FROM NYU STERN SAID, “IF MR. TRUMP WERE MY STUDENT, HE WOULD GET AN ‘A’ ON HIS FINANCIAL STATEMENTS. I’VE NEVER SEEN A STATEMENT THAT PROVIDED SO MUCH DETAIL, & IS SO TRANSPARENT, AS THESE STATEMENTS.” PLUS, THEY ALL HAVE AN IRONCLAD DISCLAIMER CLAUSE STATING THAT THE USERS MUST DO THEIR OWN DUE DILIGENCE & ANALYSIS – NO RELIANCE! THE ONLY FRAUD COMMITTED WAS BY THE HIGHLY PARTISAN & OUT OF CONTROL JUDGE, & RACIST A.G. (WHO PROMISED THAT, “I WILL GET TRUMP”)….
Page 2: THEY CLAIMED THAT MAR-A-LAGO WAS WORTH ONLY $18,000,000, WHEN IT IS WORTH 50 TO 100 TIMES THAT AMOUNT, IN ORDER TO ILLEGALLY REDUCE MY VALUES & MAKE A FAKE CASE AGAINST ME. THEY DID THIS ON OTHER PROPERTIES, AS WELL, & WOULDN’T GIVE ME A JURY. LIKEWISE, THE A.G. THUGS DO NOT WANT TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT I HAVE PAID ALMOST 300 MILLION DOLLARS IN NEW YORK CITY & STATE TAXES DURING THE YEARS IN QUESTION. IMPORTANTLY, I WON AT THE APPELLATE DIVISION, WHICH EFFECTIVELY ENDED MOST OF THE CASE, BUT THE BIASED JUDGE REFUSED TO ACCEPT THEIR ORDER, AN UNHEARD OF FIRST! BASED ON THE ABOVE, AND THE FACT THAT OUR UNASSAILABLE FINAL EXPERT WITNESS HAS BEEN SO STRONG AND IRREFUTABLE IN HIS TESTIMONY, WHICH WILL CONCLUDE ON TUESDAY, & THAT I HAVE ALREADY TESTIFIED TO EVERYTHING & HAVE NOTHING MORE TO SAY OTHER THAN THAT THIS IS A COMPLETE & TOTAL ELECTION INTERFERENCE (BIDEN CAMPAIGN!) WITCH HUNT, THAT WILL DO NOTHING BUT KEEP BUSINESSES OUT OF NEW YORK, I WILL NOT BE TESTIFYING ON MONDAY. MAGA!
DON’T FORGET, IN ADDITION TO EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE FAKE & FRAUDULENT “CASE” THAT PEEKABOO HAS BROUGHT AGAINST ME, THEIR SO-CALLED “STAR,” & ONLY, WITNESS, SLEAZEBAG & DISBARRED FORMER LAWYER, MICHAEL COHEN, ADMITTED IN COURT TO REPEATEDLY LYING UNDER OATH. IT WAS A TOTAL BREAKDOWN, A NON-RECOVERABLE PERRY MASON MOMENT. THAT ALONE ENDS THIS BIDEN DRIVEN WITCH HUNT. ELECTION INTERFERENCE!
LETITIA “PEEKABOO” JAMES, & THE SAME TEAM FROM THE NEW YORK STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL’S OFFICE, ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR DRIVING EXXONMOBIL OUT OF NEW YORK, TAKING BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN TAXES & THOUSANDS OF JOBS TO DALLAS, & OTHER CITIES. ON TOP OF ALL THAT, PEEKABOO, REPRESENTING NEW YORK STATE, LOST THE CASE!
As Law&Crime reported one week ago, Trump filed a lawsuit under Article 78 against Engoron in the Supreme Court of New York’s First Appellate Department in an attempt to undo the judge’s gag orders and fines against the former president and his lawyers.
Engoron issued a gag order in October barring Trump from verbally attacking the judge’s court staff after the former president called the judge’s principal law clerk, Allison Greenfield, Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer’s “girlfriend” and accused her of “running the case against [him]” or “co-judging.”
Thereafter, Engoron barred Trump attorneys Christopher Kise, Clifford Robert, and Alina Habba from “making any public statements, in or out of court, that refer to any confidential communications, in any form, between [the judge’s] staff and [the judge].” The judge remarked that the attorneys’ “long speeches alleging that it is improper for a judge to consult with a law clerk during ongoing proceedings, and that the passing of notes from a judge to a law clerk, or vice-versa, constitutes an improper ‘appearance of impropriety”” were baseless.
Although Trump’s lawsuit netted him a temporary stay of the gag orders, that stay was lifted by the appellate department — even as the former president asserted the gags should remain paused until his Article 78 petition was resolved. From there, Trump sought an expedited review of the lawsuit and eyed the New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, in a bid to have his case resolved before his scheduled Dec. 11 testimony.
Rather than allowing Trump to immediately take his case to the New York Court of Appeals, the appellate department ordered counsel for the state and the judge to submit their oppositions to Trump’s motions by Monday, and those oppositions were filed Sunday.
The gag order lawsuit was not definitely resolved before Trump’s scheduled testimony, however, and that seems to be a key reason, if not the reason, why he is not testifying.
“He still wants to take the stand, even though my advice is, at this point, you should never take the stand with a gag order,” Trump attorney Alina Habba reportedly said last week.
In other words, the decision not to testify may have less to do with having “NOTHING MORE TO SAY” and more to do with “what I would have said, I can’t.”
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