'Persistent fraudster' Trump may have business empire scattered to the wind: legal expert

Donald Trump will stand trial starting Monday in the $250 million lawsuit brought by New York attorney general Letitia James, but he's already been declared a "persistent fraud" by the judge who will decide the verdict and penalty.

Justice Arthur Engoron ruled last week that James had proven her fraud case against the former president, his two adult sons and 10 of his companies, and MSNBC's Andrew Weissmann explained how Trump may now have his business empire dismantled.

"He claimed that his own personal residence in Trump Tower was 30,000 square feet – even the defense lawyers before this judge conceded that was wrong, and the judge is like, 'How do you not know that it's 10,000 feet?'" Weissmann told "Morning Joe." "So, and then use that, as the court found, to defraud insurance companies and banks by saying he has more assets than he has, and that's one of the reasons for facts like that which are just so plainly fictitious that the judge appointed a receiver. What that means is essentially the attorney general for New York is in change of protecting New Yorkers from what's called persistent fraudsters, and that's what the court found that Donald Trump and his companies and his sons are."

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"So the receiver gets to essentially make sure that he is not doing business in New York," Weissmann added. "You raised a really good question about whether that's already a huge financial penalty and sanction, whether that also leads to banks and insurance companies basically pulling the plug or not financing anymore is going to be a big open question. There are already really significant consequences because this is where Donald Trump's main businesses are. So a huge factor for him in terms of his companies, in terms of all sorts of business interests that he has here that he no longer will be in control of."

Watch the video below or at this link.

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