Donald Trump has a new reason to plead the 5th after his son's testimony: expert
November 03, 2023
After Eric Trump's disastrous testimony on Thursday in the $250 million financial fraud suit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James, one CNN legal analyst suggested Donald Trump throw in the towel and continually plead the Fifth Amendment when he takes the stand next week.
Speaking with CNN hosts Kate Bolduan and John Berman, former prosecutor Elie Honig said Eric Trump's testimony could not have gone more poorly after he was tripped up over his knowledge of Trump Organization financial statements.
As Honig pointed out, with the younger Trump about to be grilled again on Friday, Judge Arthur Engoron has good cause to not take anything he says seriously or as being an approximation of the truth.
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That prompted CNN's Bolduan to point out that Engoron has already ruled that the Trump Org and its executives are guilty of financial fraud and the trial proceedings, at this stage of the game, are being used to arrive at the financial penalty and whether the Trump family's business should be dismantled.
With that in mind, she asked Honig if Donald Trump should just take the Fifth since he has nothing left to lose in this trial, and that would keep him from increasing his legal exposure elsewhere.
After already claiming, "Yesterday went really poorly for Eric Trump," Honig turned to Donald Trump's upcoming testimony scheduled for Monday and how he should approach answering questions under oath.
"It's such an interesting and really difficult strategic decision Donald Trump and his lawyers will have," he told the hosts. "When he was deposed over a year ago he took the Fifth, he wouldn't answer anything other than his name and he took the Fifth as he is entitled to do."
"But the world has changed for Donald Trump," Honig elaborated. "Back then, there were all these swirling criminal investigations; none of the four indictments we have now had landed. The world was a bit more uncertain for him. A year and change later he's been indicted on four things, none relating to this particular fraud. If he takes the Fifth he protects himself against any of those cases roaring back to life."
"It's possible he takes the stand and says something that piques prosecutors' interest, they may think maybe we should open a criminal case on him for fraud," the ex-prosecutor suggested. "The risk of taking the Fifth is that the judge in this case, this civil case, can say I'm using that against you."
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