Eric Trump's second day of testimony in New York fraud trial
On Thursday morning, Donald Trump Jr. was back in court to finish his testimony in a trial to determine penalties against the Trump Organization for fraudulently manipulating the value of properties. Junior spent the morning relaxed and grinning as he explained over and over that, even though he had signed many documents attesting to the value of the company’s assets, he never actually bothered to read anything. “Rinse and repeat,” said Junior when confronted with financial statements from a series of years. “Rinse and repeat.”
When Junior left the stands, Eric Trump sat down and tried to follow a similar strategy. Unfortunately for him, prosecutors were clutching a stack of emails and memos showing that Eric was directly involved in inflating the value of properties in New York.
Prosecutors spent most of the afternoon building up toward a conclusion, only to have the last few minutes of the day consumed by what looked very much like a planned disruption. That disruption involved Donald Trump’s legal team making remarks about Judge Arthur Engoron’s law clerk, incurring the judge’s wrath, and risking an extended gag order or contempt citation. It kept prosecutors from finishing their carefully laid out sequence of questions to Eric, but that sequence will pick up again this morning.