The latest “witch hunt” against former President Donald Trump kicked off in New York City with a revealing media moment for the judge overseeing the civil fraud trial.
Viewers “…will be either filled with rage or they will be thrilled…”
Monday, Trump reported to a Manhattan courthouse for the first day of a trial regarding charges brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James (D). Though the presiding Judge Arthur Engoron had denied media requests to document on camera, a brief suspension of that rule allowed him to beam from the bench as he appeared to delight in the moment.
Reacting live to the surprise look inside the courtroom that also showed the former president flanked by his attorneys and the AG in the background, Fox News contributor and George Washington University Law professor Jonathan Turley remarked, “People looking at this live picture right now will be either filled with rage or they will be thrilled, and that’s the problem…They’re all insisting on these trials occurring before the election. Many people find it troubling.”
Judge in Trump civil fraud trial seen mugging for cameras he briefly allowed in the courtroom pic.twitter.com/nMqaK8aSdY
— BPR based (@DumpstrFireNews) October 2, 2023
Upon arriving at the courthouse, Trump had an opportunity to speak on his own behalf with the press as he slammed the proceeding as “a continuation of the single greatest witch hunt of all time.”
“So, very simply put, it’s a witch hunt, it’s a disgrace. We have a corrupt attorney general in this state — you see how she does,” he went on to say. “This trial was railroaded and fast-tracked. This trial could have been brought years ago, but they waited ’til I was right in the middle of my campaign. The same with other trials and indictments — it’s all run by DOJ which is corrupt in Washington.”
Being a non-jury trial, Engoron, dubbed a “rogue judge” by Trump, alone holds the responsibility to determine the result of the trial intended to conclude just before Christmas on December 22. The commencement of the trial came after the judge had ruled the previous week that Trump and the Trump Organization had committed fraud through an overvaluation of his assets and the exaggeration of the businessman’s net worth in the process of securing loans and making deals and that his children, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., had aided him in doing so.
As previously reported, Newsweek had summed up, “This week’s sweeping ruling against Donald, his sons Donald Jr. and Eric, and the Trump Organization has put the Trump family at risk of losing the New York real estate empire that Donald built over decades. Tuesday’s decision from New York Justice Arthur Engoron stripped the Trumps of control over some of their signature properties that helped create the former president’s early image.”
Noted was the fact that other members of the Trump family including his eldest daughter Ivanka and his wife Melania were not embroiled in the trial, a fact that left legal experts suggesting either could be transferred control of the assets.
Meanwhile, as Turley had suggested, reactions to Engoron smiling for the camera set social media afire as viewers leveled their own charges of corruption underway in the Gotham courthouse.
That is some serious state corruption right there.
— DO NOT COMPLY (@1bluifox) October 2, 2023
I’ve never seen a judge preen for the camera like that. You can usually count on them to be stoic and unaffected by the media present. That’s…interesting.
— Brandon Hughes (@BrandonHughes74) October 2, 2023
I’m so friggin pissed. Karma is a bitch, they will get theirs! Here’s hoping it is very soon!
— Kim (@freedomcat0703) October 2, 2023
I’m enraged.
— Lloyd. (@thatisfalse1) October 2, 2023
Banana Republic stuff.
— JohnX HamblinX (@JohnDHamblin) October 2, 2023
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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