‘This Really Was a Debacle’: CNN Legal Analyst Says Trump ‘Made Important Concessions’ in His ‘Inherently Contradictory’ Testimony
CNN chief legal analyst Elie Honig was unimpressed with former President Donald Trump’s testimony in his civil fraud trial in New York on Monday.
Trump was questioned by state attorneys about the valuations of his assets, which Attorney General Letitia James says he and the Trump Organization inflated to defraud banks and insurance companies. In September, Judge Arthur Engoron agreed with that charge and issued a partial summary judgment to that effect. James is seeking $250 million from Trump and the revocation of his business licenses.
The former president said he relied on his accountants when valuing his company’s assets.
Trump and his legal team repeatedly clashed with the judge, and the former president attacked James during his testimony. Afterward, he said it “went very well.”
That assessment was not shared by Honig, who weighed in on Monday’s edition of The Source.
“Elie, there was so much chaos in that courtroom today, it was, kind of, unbelievable,” host Kaitlan Collins said. “But there were key moments where Trump seemed to have acknowledgments or admissions that could be helpful to the attorney general’s case.”
Honig agreed.
“Yeah, so, through all the drama and the spectacle, this really was a debacle in substance,” he said before elaborating:
And there were a couple of key moments that stood out to me where Donald Trump really made important concessions. First of all, one of the things I was wondering going in is, is he gonna defend these valuations? Is he gonna say, “No, we actually got it right when we said Mar-a-Lago was worth $500 million”?
Turns out, he literally doubled down. He said, “No that’s actually worth a billion dollars,” which is a surprising legal tactic. The other thing he did was, he simultaneously tried to distance himself from the valuations. He said, “We’re gonna bring in the very big bankers.” Ok, I guess he’s saying these people from Mazars, these accountants are gonna come in and explain it.
But at another really key point, to me, the most important sentence of the day, Trump said something like, “I saw those statements, I reviewed them, and at times I gave input.” And it was a quick little moment, but that’s something that I think the AG’s office is gonna latch onto because he acknowledges he knew them and knew enough to give input into those statements.
Honig concluded, “I think his testimony was inherently contradictory and a mess, but there’s some real useful pieces in there for the AG’s office.”
Watch above via CNN.
