Trump Testifying Is a Test All Its Own

Donald Trump is set to testify in a Manhattan courtroom on Monday in the $250 million civil fraud case that threatens to unravel the sweeping real estate empire and business bona fides the former president relied upon in his unlikely ascent to the White House.

Perhaps more to the point, the case threatens to expose the leading Republican presidential nominee and provide a record-setting course correct – likely an embarrassing one – to the image and identity he cultivated for himself over several decades.

The judge in the case has already found Trump and his adult sons liable of fraud and canceled the Trump Organization’s business certificates, siding with New York Attorney General Letitia James, who accused the former president and his business associates of inflating the value of his net worth and properties on financial statement used to secure loans. James is seeking $250 million in compensatory damages along with a ban on the Trumps serving as officers of a business in New York and on the company from engaging in business transactions for five years.

While Trump faces 91 criminal charges stemming from four separate indictments – two of which charge him with undermining democracy by attempting to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss – it’s the civil lawsuit from James that seems to have unnerved Trump the most.

“For those of us on the outside and those of us who care about our constitutional system and our democratic republic, these federal cases that accuse him of striking at the very heart of our constitutional structure and embroiling us in an insurrection against our government and our constitutional structure and our election system, those are most important to us as the body politic,” says Barbara Perry, professor of presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center and co-director of the Presidential Oral History Program.

Not so for Trump, she says, adding that the lawsuit “goes to the heart of the personal impact on him.”

“What would hurt him the most,” Perry says, “would be losing his business license in New York, having his kids lose their business license in New York. But we also know there will be some fines associated with their liability whereupon their assets will be sold.”

“They not only will lose their official, legal ability to do business in New York, which has been the centerpiece of their business universe, but if they begin to lose their assets – no matter what their value is – that is a huge hit.”

Beyond the extraordinary nature of having a former president testify under oath on the stand, the moment is just as highly anticipated for the unusual position in which it puts Trump – one in which his personality and his default mode of bombastic communication and proclivity to lean on mistruths will be constrained.

“While he has been able to wiggle out and around and through all the other kinds of charges against him in the political world, once you enter into the world of law, there are technical legal issues that can come back to haunt him,” she says.

Indeed, the trial has already tested him.

Since the trial began in late September, Trump has been fined twice by Judge Arthur Engoron for breaking a gag order that bars him from making public comments about the judge’s staff, stormed out of the courtroom and been made to watch as two of his sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, testified this week. His daughter Ivanka Trump is slated to testify on Tuesday.

The proceedings have also prompted him to post animated musings on his social media site, TruthSocial, where he maintains the legitimacy of his business dealings and claims that he’s a victim of political persecution.

“We know Donald Trump’s ability to sway people by his demagoguery, but the only person he can persuade now is this sitting judge, who gives every indication of not giving in to this personality – this demagogic, inflammatory personality. And he certainly won’t take any disrespect,” Perry says.

“Judges and justices will not put up with his behavior and that leaves him, as they say sometimes, when the tide goes out you find out who’s swimming naked,” she says. “It’s not a very good image to have. I’m just saying he’s going to be in an atmosphere where the tides are going to go out and he might not be wearing a bathing suit. He’s not going to be able to get away with his usual personna.”

As it stands with the trial, Trump’s two adult sons provided similar testimony – namely, that they were not involved in the specifics of the Trump Organization’s accounting and that they merely signed off on financial documents that had been prepared for them by others in the firm who held that expertise, including former CFO Allen Weisselberg and accountant Donald Bender.

Both sons held the title of executive vice president after their father was elected president. Eric Trump, who maintained more direct involvement in the company, provided more detailed testimony and was at times chippy in his responses to prosecutors who sought to tease out his specific role. During testimony on Friday, he acknowledged he was aware of the Trump Organization’s statements of financial condition as far back as 2013 after repeatedly denying knowledge of them.

The trial continues on Monday, with Trump testifying.