Former President Donald Trump has signaled that he plans to attend his civil fraud trial in New York in person next week, according to a court filing in an unrelated case involving the former president.
A federal judge in Florida, who is overseeing Trump’s litigation against his former attorney, Michael Cohen, agreed to postpone a deposition in the case because it would conflict with the New York trial set to begin on Monday.
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United States Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres said Trump “again requested that the Court reschedule his deposition so that he could attend his previously-scheduled New York trial in person. Plaintiff represented that, now that pretrial rulings have been entered in the case that materially altered the landscape, it was imperative that he attend his New York trial in person — at least for each day of the first week of trial when many strategy judgments had to be made.”
When asked by reporters on Friday if he planned to attend, Trump said, “I may, I may, yeah,” also describing it as “a disgrace” and “all rigged.”
New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron dealt a major blow to Trump, finding him liable for committing fraud by regularly overvaluing his assets and stripping him of control over his New York properties. Next week, the juryless trial will resolve other aspects of the case, including whether Trump’s company will face additional punishments, and New York Attorney General Letitia James’s effort to regain $250 million from alleged ill-gotten gains.
Last week, the appellate division rejected a Trump lawsuit against the presiding judge, the main purpose of which was to delay the trial and toss out many of the allegations against him.
James’ case rests on her ability to convince Engoron that the former president submitted statements to banks that exaggerated his net worth by upwards of $2.2 billion on some records to get more favorable loans.
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Trump’s attorney, Chris Kise, has countered that such banks made a profit off of the loans and that Trump always made his payments on time.
The trial will take place as Trump has a commanding lead over other GOP presidential candidates in the polls. Last week, the former president skipped the second primary debate. He has sought to push the trials back until after the election. Trump has been criminally charged in four cases and has pleaded not guilty in each.
