Trump trying to tear down judicial system 'brick by brick' as law closes in: analysis

The fraud trial against Donald Trump appears to be nearing a conclusion, and the former president has stepped up his attacks on the judge as his likely loss becomes more apparent.

Judge Arthur Engoron has already found Trump liable for fraud in the $250 million lawsuit filed by New York attorney general Letitia James, and the ex-president has ranted almost daily on Truth Social against the judge and his rulings and thrown courthouse tantrums aimed at discrediting the legal process, wrote MSNBC columnist Hayes Brown.

"In doing so, he’s hoping he can once again turn a short-term loss into a long-term victory, either politically through his long-practiced grievance shtick or legally through the appeals process," Brown wrote. "Trump’s lawyers already filed an appeal to overturn Engoron’s partial summary judgment. The emergency request to the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division resulted in a limited win for Trump, which, fittingly, he has exaggerated to all hell."

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The appeals court temporarily halted the dissolution of Trump's businesses but declined to pause the trial, which will ultimately determine what penalties he'll face for filling false financial statements, and in the meantime he intends to turn the proceeding into a "media circus" with his outbursts.

"Engoron has so far opted not to expand the gag order to include the former president’s invective toward himself," Brown wrote. "That makes sense on one level: Because this is a bench trial, there’s no chance of tainting a jury pool’s views of the case or the judge. And Trump’s yelling about Engoron is much more likely to be protected speech under the First Amendment than instances of potential witness intimidation, the basis for a much more robust gag order in Trump’s federal election interference case."

Trump attacks the judge almost every day on social media, calling him "crazy, totally unhinged, and dangerous" and questioning the judicial system itself.

"That sort of direct, personal attack is what has always made Trump’s ravings so dangerous," Brown wrote. "For all his delusions of grandeur, Trump does actually know when he’s been beaten. When he feels cornered, he goes beyond attacking the direct object of his ire — be it Engoron or former FBI Director James Comey or his loss in the 2020 presidential election — and calls into question the very system at hand. The troubling part is that there are now enough people who agree with his claims of persecution that, if given the merest chance, they’ll help him tear down those systems brick by brick."