'Justice Engoron was frustrated': Expert explains why judge is mad at Trump's legal team

Justice Arthur Engoron, the New York jurist presiding over former President Donald Trump's civil fraud trial, is fed up with the former president and his legal team, legal analyst Lisa Rubin explained on MSNBC Friday.

This comes as Allen Weisselberg, the former chief accountant for the Trump Organization, is reportedly in talks to plea guilty to perjury — all as Engoron tries to wrap up the civil fraud trial against Trump and his adult sons for allegedly falsifying property valuations to manipulate loan and tax treatment.

"Judge Engoron fired off a terse letter to Trump's team over the question of whether Trump's CFO Allen Weisselberg perjured himself," said anchor Alicia Menendez, reading off what the judge wrote. "'When I sent my straightforward, narrow request for information about possible perjury by Allen Weisselberg, I was not seeking to initiate a wide-ranging debate with counsel. However, your misleading response grossly mischaracterizes the letter I wrote and I felt compelled to respond and said, you and your co-counsel have been questioning my impartiality since the early days of this case presumably because I sometimes rule against your clients. That whole approach ... it would seem to be getting old.'"

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"What is going on here?" Menendez added.

"I think Justice Engoron was frustrated with the lack of candor, or the lack of information — I shouldn't say candor because we don't know what the Trump lawyers in the civil case actually learned," said Rubin. "However, based on their own due diligence and the facts irrespective they've had with Weisselberg, they likely know whether Allen Weisselberg did, in fact, perjure himself during his testimony, and they are obligated to report whatever they know about that to the extent that there were falsehoods told on the stand to the judge in keeping with their ethical obligations under New York rules governing attorneys."

"I should note Alina Habba and Cliff Robert, the attorneys who it was written to, are New York licensed lawyers, they have that responsibility," Rubin continued. "And Engoron is frustrated neither one of them gave him any information. And on top of that as you noted, they took the opportunity to make some attacks on Engoron, saying he's perpetually been biased against them, that he doesn't take issue, for example, with the fact that Michael Cohen, who was a witness for the attorney general, also perjured himself on the stand, he doesn't seem to be having a problem with that, and yet is attacking poor Allen Weisselberg."

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