Prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office said they plan to ask Donald Trump about it in a court filing on Wednesday. expensive judgments and revelations of wrongdoing in numerous civil cases if the former president decides to testify in a criminal case – although the permissibility of this line of inquiry remains to be seen.
Prosecutors said they intend to ask Trump about a pair of rulings in a civil fraud lawsuit against him and his company by New York Attorney General Letitia James, as well as lawsuits filed by author E. Jean Carroll. Total judgments in three cases is close to a dollar550 million and contains Trump’s findings committed fraud In AG’s case and he is responsible sexual abuse and slander In the Carroll case.
District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office also plans to mark the judge’s findings against Trump in the civil fraud case. violated traffic rules and “gave false testimony under oath” during the trial.
Prosecutors said they wanted to bring those findings to light Trump appfood — if he accepts the testimony of the witness, “to violate the trust of the accused”.
Trump said last week “adefinitely“plans to testify but it does not have to.
If he takes the stand, prosecutors would also like to ask him about his ruling on whether the DA was successful. prosecution for tax fraud A settlement the Trump Organization and its Trump Foundation struck with the AG’s office in 2019. A federal judge He ordered Trump to pay $2 million in restitution in this case, after the foundation admitted in a settlement that it misused foundation funds to help Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, settle personal legal disputes and buy portraits of himself.
They also want Judge Juan Mercan to allow them to ask about Trump’s lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and others, which resulted in the arrest of Trump and one of his lawyers. sanctioned and ordered to pay $937,989 in fees for frivolous, bad faith filing. The judge in this case is “a prolific and accomplished litigator who has repeatedly used the courts to exact revenge on political opponents of Mr. Trump. He is the mastermind behind the strategic abuse of the judicial process, and he has served the sentence. He cannot be seen as a litigant blindly following the advice of a lawyer.”
Prosecutors made the announcement ahead of a type of hearing, called a Sandoval hearing, originally scheduled for Friday. Sandoval hearings are designed to allow defendants to make informed decisions about whether to testify by providing preliminary stipulations about the extent of cross-examination permitted by prosecutors.
Trump’s lawyers informed the judge about this buyetter They will argue that the DA’s office should be prohibited from “asking about these items” last month.
The trial, the first criminal trial against the former president, did not take place on Wednesday, but continues jury selection Thursday. Trump begged not guilty to 34 fraudulent business records related to hush money payments to porn stars in the closing days of the 2016 presidential election. If found guilty, he faces up to 4 years in prison.