‘Not a Shred of Evidence!’ CNN’s Daniel Dale and Abby Phillip Knock Down Trump’s Fraud Courtroom Rant
CNN anchor Abby Phillip and CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale knocked down claims ex-President Donald Trump made during a rant outside the courtroom where his fraud trial is being held.
Trump was in court Monday for the first time since news broke last Tuesday that Judge Arthur Engoron of the Supreme Court 1st Judicial District in New York ruled that Trump and his company committed fraud in a major development in the civil case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Trump made remarks to reporters several times outside the courtroom Monday, attacking the judge and the AG and the proceeding itself with a variety of claims.
On Monday night’s edition of CNN Primetime, Phillip hosted Dale to fact-check Trump’s claims, which were found to be false, baseless, or misleading:
PHILLIP: Daniel, Trump made quite a few claims, as usual. Some of them have already been rejected by this judge. But here is the former president claiming that this lawsuit is part of a coordinated effort by the Department of Justice. Is there any truth in that?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: This trial was railroaded and fast-tracked. This trial could have been brought years ago, but they waited until I was right in the middle of my campaign, the same with other trials and indictments. It’s all run by DOJ, which is corrupt in Washington. Everything goes through them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, the DOJ, he says, is part of all of this. Is there any truth to that?
DANIEL DALE, CNN REPORTER: No, there is no truth to that. There is not a shred of evidence that DOJ is the hidden hand behind the scene. This is a state case brought by a state attorney general who Trump correctly noted today and on previous occasions made it part of her campaign platform that she was going to be tough on Trump.
And the second significant inaccuracy in those comments there, Abby, was the part about timing, waiting until the middle of my campaign. Attorney General James launched the lawsuit that led to this trial in September 2022. That’s when she filed it. Trump did not launch his campaign until November 2022. So, the lawsuit that led to this trial was filed roughly two months before he even announced his 2024 candidacy.
PHILLIP: Yes, a good point there.
Daniel, Trump also talked at length about what he called a worthless clause, a disclaimer that he had put or his aides had put in the financial statements that are now at issue in this trial. Let’s listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We have a clause in the contract.
[22:05:00]
It’s like a buyer beware clause. It says, when you take a look at the financial statement, don’t believe anything you read. This is up front. Some people go to worthless clause because it makes the statement and anything you read in the statement worthless.
This is what’s called a full disclaimer. We disclaim the financial statements. But even with a full disclaimer, which immediately takes you out of any fraud situation and any litigation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, what do we know about that, Daniel?
DALE: Trump is making this clause sound way stronger than it actually is. You can read it. What it says, and I’m paraphrasing, is that the asset valuations in Trump’s financial statements are estimates, that they used a variety of methodologies to come up with these estimates, including in some cases the judgments of Trump and his associates.
It says that you may not be able to sell these assets for the same price that is listed here. So, it does, basically, in so many words, encourage readers to be cautious about what they’re seeing. But it does not say that what is contained in these statements is useless or worthless. It doesn’t say don’t believe anything you read. And the judge himself noted this in his ruling last week, finding Trump and his sons liable for fraud. The judge said that their reliance on this so-called worthless clause is itself worthless. They say that you cannot rely on such a vague disclaimer to misrepresent fact and claim that that inoculates you against claims of fraud.
So, Trump’s assertions about what this clause says and how it supposedly protects him against any and all liability is just not borne out by the facts.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, that would be pretty hard to believe, honestly, if it were true. So, Daniel, also, shortly before Trump appeared in court today, his campaign released a statement about New York City’s crime data, as if that is related to all of this. Was any of it accurate?
DALE: Yes, so it wasn’t false. They used actual numbers, but they were cherry-picking the endpoint for those numbers. So, in talking about New York State, they ended their data in 2021.Talking about New York City, they ended in 2022. So they said New York City shootings increased 71 percent from 2018 to 2022, murders up 48 percent, 2018 to 2022.
What they didn’t mention, though, was that we’re in October 2023, and the trend line is now sharply downwards. So, murder in New York City is down 11 percent this year. That’s in addition to 10 percent decline last year. Shooting incidents are down 27 percent this year, and that’s after a 17 percent decline last year.
So, in addition to the broader point that you can’t attribute any trend in crime up or down to any individual attorney general, this is complicated, difficult stuff to pinpoint. Those numbers do not end in 2022. They’re not going up anymore. They’re going sharply down.
Watch above via CNN Primetime.
