Donald Trump takes the stand at NYC fraud trial: Live updates [New York Daily News]

Donald Trump took the witness stand at his Manhattan Supreme Court fraud trial Monday, slated to face a grilling about his penchant for inflating his net worth and the value of his properties by billions.

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40 Wall Street questions

Wallace asked questions about 40 Wall Street and its valuation.

Trump does not give a straight answer, instead saying AG James “doesn’t even know what 40 Wall Street is,” which gets a laugh out of James, who — aside from investigating Trump’s stake in the building for around three years — has her office literally next door.

He continues to not give a straight “yes” or “no” answer, despite clashing with judge about this earlier in the day.

Trump attacks Judge Engoron, AG Tish James

Trump has gone off the rails, screaming insults at Attorney General Tish James — who is sitting in the front row.

“She’s a political hack,” Trump yelled. “… The fraud is her!”

He’s completely lost it at Engoron, as well. He’s firmly in his element, taking a tone similar to his political rallies. Trump tells Wallace that “people like you” try to hurt and demean him.

Trump argues that a “disclaimer clause” gets him off the hook for mistakes in statements he verified — a moot argument, as he’s already been found liable for fraud.

“He called me a fraud and he didn’t know anything about me!” Trump exclaimed.

“You’re wrong in your opinion!” Trump said, calling it a “fraudulent decision.”

“You done?” asked Wallace.

“Done,” Trump said.

“Rambling” about Scottish golf course

As the questions turn to focus on his Aberdeen, Scotland, golf course, Trump raves about the the property, calling it “an artistic expression.”

“It was the greatest golf course ever built … It’s one of the greatest pieces of land I’ve ever seen,” he said.

Engoron says he’s following Wallace’s lead — if Wallace wants to let Trump “ramble on,” he’ll allow it.

Mar-a-Lago’s value

Wallace asks Trump about various properties, including the triplex in Trump Tower and Mar-a-Lago and his golf club in Aberdeen, Scotland.

“I think between a billion and a billion-five,” Trump replies to a question about the value of Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort. Evidence from the AG says the value is around $75 million.

Trump said on the stand the resort was a club that they were able to develop as a private property.

This is a major point in the trial — the Mar-a-Lago estate was valued based on a false premise that it sat on unrestricted property and could be developed for residential use.

However, it was actually not unrestricted — and instead was subject to a maze of restrictions and limitations that made its actual value a lot lower.

Too “busy in the White House”

Trump was asked about his involvement in Mar-a-Lago financial statements in 2021 — he said he wasn’t, and that perhaps his sons were, as well as Trump Org executives Allen Weisselberg and Jeff McConney.

“I was so busy in the White House … my threshold was China, Russia and keeping our country safe,” Trump said, drawing a giggle from the courtroom.

Trump was no longer president after January 2021.

After the break, things are less contentious between Trump and Judge Engoron.

All eyes on in-court fight, away from finances

Attention is now completely diverted from Wallace’s questions about Trump’s financial statements and valuations — in what seems to be a clear strategy from the Trump team to take away from the subject matter.

Wallace, lawyer for the AG, has requested an early 15-minute break so Kise can speak with Trump on his behavior.

Outside of the courtroom, Trump has previously publicly gone after Engoron, calling him “biased” and “tyrannical.” He’s been slapped with a gag order for going after the judge’s clerk.

But as the judge has previously noted, the gag order does not apply to criticizing Engoron himself. something he said Friday Trump’s side had “taken advantage of.”

Trump complains; Engoron rages

Less than an hour in, the tone of the trial turned extremely antagonistic. Judge Arthur Engoron was raging as he repeatedly asked Kise to rein in Trump.

“No, I do not want to hear everything that witness has to say,” Engoron exclaimed, frustrated that Trump was no simply answering “yes” or “no” to questions.

Trump’s more lengthy answers included a diatribe about how, at one point, he thought 40 Wall Street was the tallest building in the world.

Alina Habba, attorney for Trump, jumped in, infuriating Engoron even more.

“This is a very, very unfair trial, and I hope the public is watching,” Trump said from the stand.

“Mr. Kise, can you control your witness because I am considering drawing a negative inference for anything that might be asked,” Engoron said minutes earlier.

A testy start

Proceedings are testy between Trump and the judge, who’s trying to keep the former president from speaking in his signature long-winded rants.

“Mr. Kise, can you control your client? This is not a political rally,” a fed-up Engoran said. “…I’ve asked several times to answer the question….I don’t want editorializing …. Maybe you should have a talk with him, right now.”

Trump’s attorney Chris Kise has gone back and forth with the judge a few times now, just minutes into his testimony.

“I’m sure the judge will rule against me, because he always rules against me,” Trump said minutes earlier.

Trump long-winded

After Trump gave a long-winded answer to a question by Kevin Wallace, a lawyer for state Attorney General Tish James, Judge Arthur Engoron asked Trump to make things snappier.

“Mr. Trump, Mr. Wallace is being very patient… I would like to move things along fast…just answer questions, no speeches,” Engoron said.

Trump takes the stand

Former President Donald Trump took the stand and was sworn in just part 10 a.m. He was accompanied in the courtroom by attorneys Chris Kise and Alina Habba.

The former president is expected to sit for a full day of questioning about how he ran the family enterprise he inherited from his late father, Fred, as state AG Tish James’ case enters its sixth week on trial.

Trump will take the stand as he’s leading President Biden in the latest New York Times-Siena College poll a year out from the election. He’s expected to testify as the second to last witness in the state’s case, with Ivanka Trump slated to go last on Wednesday. She was initially a defendant in the case but won dismissal on appeal.

He’ll be sitting in the witness box just feet away from the judge and his principal law clerk, whom Trump has attacked online, leading to a gag order issued on the second day of trial. He’s been fined $15,000 for violating it twice. The judge determined Trump was lying when he testified the week before last about his inflammatory out of court commentary — when he claimed he’d been trashing Cohen outside the courtroom and not the clerk — finding he was “not credible” after just three minutes.

AG James, a frequent target of Trump’s Truth Social diatribes, took her seat on the courtroom’s front bench around 9:40 a.m.

Judge Arthur Engoron has heard testimony about how the senior execs at the Trump Org fudged the numbers to persuade banks to lend them more than they should, brokers to agree to coverage at higher limits and lower premiums, and Forbes to place Trump high on its Rich List. They ballooned the value of his namesake assets more than 200 times between 2011 and 2021, according to the AG’s case.

The bogus figures were tallied by Trump’s convicted finance chief, Allen Weisselberg, and his deputy, company controller Jeffrey McConney. Trump and his eldest kids and executive vice presidents Don Jr., Ivanka, and Eric provided input, according to trial testimony.

In their back-to-back testimony, Trump’s adult sons pinned the blame on the company’s outside accounting firm Mazars, which compiled the figures into reports relied on by financial institutions before advancing hundreds of millions of dollars to Trump’s businesses. They said they shouldn’t be held responsible for business records they signed off on.

“The accountants worked on it,” Don Jr. told the court last week. “That’s what we pay them to do.”

Whether or not Trump, his sons, Weisselberg, and McConney committed fraud is no longer in question. In a scathing pretrial ruling, Engoron found Trump and his crew engaged in widespread fraud by submitting valuations inflating his net worth by as high as $2.2 billion in business deals to deceive financial institutions and illegally profit from 2014 through the end of Trump’s presidency.

If upheld on appeal, Trump stands to lose control of prized properties in his real estate portfolio, including his sawtooth high-rise Trump Tower on Fifth Ave. and green lantern-topped skyscraper on Wall St.

Yet to be determined is how much Trump and his associates should have to pay back and whether they committed six other crimes in New York’s penal code relating to the conspiracy underlying the valuation scheme and insurance fraud.

Donald Trump, known his whole life for ruthless approach to real estate, set to answer for fraud in historic Monday testimony

James is seeking to bar Trump, his adult sons, and top executives from ever again leading a company in New York, from cutting commercial real estate acquisition deals and borrowing money for ventures for five years, and aims to recover $250 million in ill-gotten gains.

Trump and his associates deny all wrongdoing. Among other claims, they’ve argued the value of buildings is subjective and that their offenses had no victims.

With Colin Mixon