NEW YORK : Former United States President Donald Trump has decided against testifying for a second time at his civil fraud trial in New York, saying he has “nothing more to say”.
Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential election, said on Sunday that he saw no need to testify as he had done so “very successfully & conclusively” last month.
“I have already testified to everything & have nothing more to say,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.
Trump had been expected to take the witness stand on Monday in the case involving allegations that the former president, his family members and employees inflated the value of real estate assets by billions of dollars to receive more favourable bank loans and insurance terms.
Trump lawyer Christopher Kise said there was “really nothing more to say to a judge who has imposed an unconstitutional gag order and thus far appears to have ignored President Trump’s testimony and that of everyone else involved in the complex financial transactions at issue in the case”.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who filed the lawsuit, said her office had already proven Trump “committed years of financial fraud and unjustly enriched himself and his family.
“No matter how much he tries to distract from reality, the facts don’t lie.”
In a defiant and combative appearance on November 6, Trump clashed with prosecutors for more than three and a half hours as he defended his wealth and denied wrongdoing.
Judge Arthur Engoron has already ruled that James’s office has provided “conclusive evidence” that Trump overstated his net worth by between $812m and $2.2bn and ordered the liquidation of several companies managing the assets in question.
Engoron, whom Trump has branded “hostile” and a “political hack”, in October slapped the former president with $15,000 in fines for violating a partial gag order imposed over disparaging remarks he made about the judge’s law clerk.
Trump has branded the proceedings, which do not carry the risk of criminal penalties such as prison time, as a partisan “witch hunt”.
The trial, which will continue without Trump’s testimony, is expected to conclude in January.
courtesy : al jazeera
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