Trump and his sons will plead the Fifth in civil fraud trial: Watergate prosecutor

Former President Donald Trump and his adult sons will be facing trial for civil fraud in a matter of days — and the clear facts of the case have already been decided, with Judge Arthur Engoron finding them liable and leaving it to the court how much they owe New York State in damages.

But things could get even worse for them, argued former Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman on CNN Thursday. They will have to take the Fifth on the stand to protect themselves from further legal harm — and even in so doing, they will damage themselves.

"Nick, would you be surprised if Trump or his eldest sons were called to testify?" asked anchor Jake Tapper. "Or are you expecting that?"

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"Oh, I'm expecting that," said Akerman. "If I were the AG, I would pop them up on the stand almost immediately. Because I would expect on a number of these issues they're going to wind up asserting their Fifth Amendment privilege, claiming that a truthful answer would tend to incriminate them. Particularly Donald Trump, one of the issues that's left in this case is the falsification of business records. And he's already under indictment for that issue in Manhattan."

The upshot of that, Akerman continued, is that likely "all of these people are going to have to take the Fifth Amendment or get up there and lie or put themselves in legal jeopardy of being subsequently indicted."

"Keep in mind, this is a civil case," added Akerman. "It's not like a criminal case where the government can't call the defendant to the witness stand. In a civil case you can use the assertion of the Fifth Amendment privilege as an adverse inference against the person who asserts that privilege. So I would expect absolutely that the AG is going to call all of those witnesses."

Watch the video below or at the link here.

Nick Akerman says Trump and his sons will need to take the Fifth at civil trialwww.youtube.com