We know—with near-certainty—that former President Donald Trump is going to lose New York Attorney General Letitia James’ ongoing civil case against him for “numerous acts of fraud and misrepresentation.”
The judge ruled against Trump before the trial, on a motion for summary judgment filed by James. The AG said that she should win on some issues without the need for a trial, and the judge agreed. We thus know that Trump will lose. The only remaining question is how much will Trump ultimately have to pay.
Trump, for his part, seems to be going out of his way to make that amount as high as possible.
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On Oct. 3, Trump posted on Truth Social a picture of Judge Arthur Engoron’s law clerk, Allison Greenfield, standing next to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. The caption falsely referred to Greenfield as “Schumer’s girlfriend” and said she was “running the case against” Trump. Judge Engoron instructed Trump to delete that post and entered a gag order forbidding Trump from posting any more derogatory comments about court staff.
Although Trump deleted the offending post from Truth Social, he (perhaps inadvertently) left the statement up at his campaign website. Judges are extraordinarily protective of their clerks. When Judge Engoron learned that the post remained up, he fined Trump $5,000 and warned him to be more careful in the future.
Trump wasn’t. Today, Trump stood outside the courtroom and said that Judge Engoron was “a very partisan judge with a person who’s very partisan sitting alongside him." Trump was plainly again attacking the law clerk.
When the proceedings resumed, Judge Engoron called Trump to the witness stand. Trump testified that he didn’t mean the clerk at all, but was instead referring to his former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, who had been testifying against Trump from the witness stand on the other side of Judge Engoron.
The judge promptly issued a ruling: “As a trier of fact, I find that the witness is not credible.”
That’s lawyer-speak for “Trump is lying under oath.”
Judge Engoron found that Trump was, in fact, referring to the law clerk and fined Trump another $10,000.
About 45 minutes after the court imposed the $10,000 sanction on Trump, Cohen testified that Trump had never directly instructed him to falsify financial statements. Given that testimony, Trump’s lawyers asked that certain claims be dismissed. Judge Engeron denied that motion, and Trump stormed out of the courtroom, with his Secret Service agents in tow.
This is not a man who’s trying to ingratiate himself with the court.
When you’re the defendant in a trial without a jury, you really want the judge to like you. The judge may in the end rule against you, but you shouldn’t encourage the judge to want to hammer you. Any lawyer will tell you that needlessly antagonizing a presiding judge is just stupid.
Judges try to be fair, and they try not to let their personal feelings interfere with their rulings on the law. But judges are also human.
Judge Engoron has already ruled against Trump before trial and is now deciding how badly to punish Trump for his misdeeds. Any rational defendant would, in this situation, be on his best behavior.
Not Trump.
Perhaps he can’t resist the publicity that he gets from attacking the judge and his clerk during trial. Perhaps Trump is affirmatively trying to antagonize the judge, so that the court’s final decision is particularly harsh. This may help Trump politically—or make the opinion weaker when Trump ultimately takes his appeal.
Or perhaps Trump simply can’t help himself. He’s spent a lifetime attacking those who don’t accommodate him, and he’s not able to break that habit.
Whatever the cause however, the legal reality is the same: When the judge speaks, Trump should listen.
Instead, he’s going out of his way to defy the judge, and that cannot help his legal cause. Compounding his error, after swearing to tell the truth, Trump gave testimony that the judge found to be false. Defying the judge and lying under oath may help Trump politically, and it may satisfy him personally.
But from a legal perspective, it’s just plain crazy.
