Former President Donald Trump’s Thursday courtroom tirade could backfire, legal experts warn.

Trump attorney Chris Kise asked Judge Arthur Engoron, who is overseeing Trump’s New York fraud trial, to allow Trump to speak on his own behalf during closing arguments. Engoron asked Trump if he would agree to stick to the facts and relevant law but the former president launched into a lengthy diatribe, accusing the judge and New York Attorney General Letitia James of waging a “political witch hunt” and demanding “damages” because the real “fraud is on me.”

During one portion of his rant, Trump referred to a key allegation in James’ lawsuit alleging that the former president’s Trump Tower penthouse was valued at three times larger than it actually is.

“They made a mistake. It was an honest mistake,” Trump said.

James’ team allowed Trump to speak until the judge ultimately shut him down and pleaded for Kise to “control your client.”

“There may be a reason that James’ staff didn’t interrupt,” wrote NBC News legal analyst Lisa Rubin. “The AG’s office may have struck gold because some of what Trump said was so damaging to him, especially his explanation of the triplex square footage ‘error.’

  • FuglyDuck
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    6 months ago

    Sams club in highschool. They used janky things to count bills- by weight. The thing is, a new bill weighs substantially more than an old bill.

    Enough that across 500 in 20’s because they didn’t come around early as often as they’re supposed to, it’s enough to be off by a few bills. Never mind all the ones.

    They spent weeks arguing, insisting we were stealing- every single cashier was on average off by about the same margins. The same margin, incidentally, that was the margin of error on the machines…

    • Gormadt
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      126 months ago

      We counted our bills by hand luckily, but there were more than a few occasions where some change ended up getting shuffled about in the tray which led to some errors

      The worst was seeing someone get fired and then when the new till was being put in we figured out the $20 bill that was missing got caught in the register some time during the day

      • FuglyDuck
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        86 months ago

        or the cash office people, were the ones looting it the entire time. They had their fingers in every one’s drawers and got to see all the camera angles.

        • @IDontHavePantsOn@lemm.ee
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          16 months ago

          The kind of asshole that creates a reason to fire anyone at anytime they feel like it, even if the state laws are not “at will”, and if they are, they save on unemployment insurance.