Trump biographer says ex-president's trial expert was paid 'a great deal' for testifying

He had 500,000 reasons to deliver sunny testimony in Trump's civil fraud trial, according to a Trump biographer.

David Cay Johnston, who authored the book "The Big Cheat," recounted on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360" how New York University Professor of Accounting Eli Bartov was compensated handsomely to appear as a witness to paint Trump as a model executive in Trump's $250 million trial brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James accusing the tycoon of building his real estate empire wealth using widespread fraud.

"I was frankly, very surprised of this very eminent accounting professor's testimony as an expert witness by the way came out today; he was paid more than one-half million dollars," Johnston said.

He explained how the Trumps "paid him over a half a million dollars" and that it was head scratching.

"I mean, that's not a normal expert witness you bring in who gets $25,000, $50,000, or $60,000," he added. "That's a great deal of money."

"And there are clear badges of fraud in his statements. So that's what I find very surprising."

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Bartov proclaimed in court that if Donald Trump matriculated into one of his classes his statements of financial condition would receive an "A," according to ABC News.

"I've never seen a statement that provides so much detail and is so transparent as these statements," Bartov said, noting that there was an "awesome amount of information" in the Trump Organization's financial documents that are at the center of the case lodged against Trump.

"There is no fraud here," he said bluntly.

Former Manhattan Chief Assistant District Attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo weighed in to say that the judge will consider Bartov's steep court appearance fee and his reputation when making his ruling. However, she too was a struck by the nature of the witness essentially usurping the role of the judge.

"He is an expert, right," she asked. "He is supposed to talk about expert accounting principles."

"But for him to then opine that there was no fraud here, that's up to the judge to decide, right."

She continued: "He can say what he thinks something is worth or what the equations are that should go into it, but how does he know whether something was a mistake, whether it was inadvertent."

Indeed, New York Supreme Justice Arthur Engoron responded to Bartov to make it clear that his decision that Trump and his business committed fraud is unequivocal.

Back in September, Engoron ordered to punish Trump by rescinding some of the former president's business licenses and installed an independent monitor to oversee the Trump Organization's operations.

"My summary judgment is the law of the case on the legal effect of this paragraph or these sentences," the judge said in response to Bartov's testimony.

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