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Donald Trump slammed the months-long fraud case against him and the attorney general suing him in a rapid, breathless statement from the defence table inside a Manhattan courtroom where his attorneys delivered closing arguments in the case.
The judge presiding over the civil case in New York County Supreme Court had previously denied the former president from personally addressing the court, after his lawyers failed to agree to limiting his remarks to case itself without lashing out and using the moment for a campaign stunt.
Judge Arthur Engoron gave him another chance on Thursday, if he could promise to stick to relevant facts of the case. Hours earlier, after the former president raged against the case on his Truth Social, police responded to a swatting attempt at the judge’s home.
The former couldn’t resist seizing the brief moment to tie the case to what he sees is a conspiracy against him as he seeks the Republican nomination for president.
“Well I think, your honor, I think the case goes outside the facts. The financial statements were perfect,” Mr Trump told the judge while sitting at the defence table. “The banks got all their money back.”
He claimed “there was not one witness who went against us” and called the case “a political witch hunt.”
“We should receive damages for what we’ve gone through,” he said, speaking in a winding, unbroken sentence.
“What happened here, sir, is a fraud on me,” he said.
He repeated his claim that the case is politically motivated “election interference”, alluding to a conspiracy theory that the lawsuit and mountain of litigation against him are e Democratic-led threat to keep the likely Republican nominee for the presidency out of the White House.
“But in particular the person in the room right now hates Trump and used Trump to get elected,” he said, referencing New York Attorney General Letitia James.
After the judge reminded him of the limited time on his clock, Mr Trump fired back: “You can’t listen for more than one minute.”
Judge Engoron asked his attorney Christopher Kise to keep control of his client, with a warning that his time on the microphone was limited.
“This could’ve gone a lot differently” if Mr Trump had just agreed to the terms of his remarks laid out in emails to attorneys, the judge told Mr Kise before the courtroom paused for lunch shortly after 1pm.
The former president’s final remarks in the case, which concludes on Thursday after 11 weeks of witness testimony that first began in October, underscore the growing overlap between his campaign and his long list of criminal and civil cases.
Ms James’s lawsuit, which was filed in September 2022, accuses Mr Trump, his two adult sons and their chief associates in the Trump Organization umbrella of defrauding financial institutions with grossly inflated estimates of his net worth and assets over a decade.
Judge Engoron’s issued a damning pretrial judgment one year later, finding that the defendants are liable for allegations of fraud outlined in the blockbuster suit, leaving a bench trial to determine how much Mr Trump and his associates should owe, and whether the attorney general is successful on other claims in her complaint, including insurance fraud and conspiracy.
This is a developing story