'No chance of winning': Legal expert says Trump sees fraud case as a 'soap box'

Former President Donald Trump is not even attempting to get a favorable outcome in his civil fraud trial at this point, and is simply trying to set up an appeal and gain sympathy in the court of public opinion over the case, argued former prosecutor Michael J. Moore on CNN Wednesday.

This comes as the ex-president's daughter Ivanka Trump testified in the case, which has already been decided against him on the fraud claim and is currently in the phase of assessing damages and determining outstanding issues.

"I think the entire case for the former president and his lawyers have been making arguments preserved for the record so they can move forward on appeal," said Moore.

"I think they felt like — frankly I think the way the court set the case up, given the ruling on the motion prior to trial, it was dispositive on much of the issues of the case," Moore continued. "This is a case they felt like they had no chance of winning or prevailing on in any detail before this judge but rather they want to make a record they can move up to an appellate court. So I expect they'll try to poke holes there, they'll have people come up with valuations, saying the court had that wrong. They'll look at valuations on the Florida properties between the state experts and folks there on the ground in Florida. You may see folks come up from the assessor's office and things like that."

"This is not a case — if they think they're going to put something on that they're going to win next week in front of this judge, that's not going to happen. There's not a silver bullet," said Moore. "Right now this is how do we make a record for appeal, preserve the issues we need to move forward. And how do we show the court made errors in the official motion. Whether they're successful, we'll see. I never thought this trial was strictly about — at least for the former president, the value of his company or the moneys he was alleged to have — the values he was alleged to have increased."

"I felt like this was more of a chance in a non-criminal setting, this is a civil case, remember, in a non-criminal setting to make hay with his voters and use this as a campaign appearance, you've seen it time after time, as he fought with the judge on the stand knowing those back and forths would be reported in the media," Moore added. "He used this as a message to his followers how mistreated he is. He has fuller range and less jeopardy than he may have in a criminal case. Those are obviously stacked up against him throughout the next year. So this, for him, has given him a forum, it's given him the soap box, so to speak, while at the same time his lawyers are trying to do what they can to make sure that the appeals court has the information they need to at least delay and consider at some length and delay an opinion, I'm sure, well past the primary and possibly the general election season."

Watch the video below or at the link.

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