'Bloviating' Trump was ruder to the judge than 'murderers': expert
Former President Donald Trump had his day on the witness stand in his civil fraud trial in New York — during which he behaved aggressively toward prosecutors and boasted about his wealth, even as he admitted some of the key valuations of properties under the Trump Organization were not correct.
His behavior was way out of the bounds of normal, said former acting solicitor general Neal Katyal on MSNBC's "The Beat."
"I want to get right into this, Neal," said substitute anchor Charles Coleman. "I'm going to ask you, was this the Donald Trump you expected to hear take the stand today?"
POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?
"I was not surprised because, you know, Trump did what he always did," said Katyal. "He does cover a lot of ground. He attacked the lawyers. He attacked the New York attorney general. He attacked the judge. For all of his attacks, there was one key thing missing from Trump's testimony, which is any semblance of a colorable defense, and that is Donald Trump through and through. It's a distraction and the like, and that's why you say this kind of crazy, the antics and behavior."
"He was not acting like any litigant I have ever seen in any courtroom, let alone someone who's a former high-ranking government official," Katyal continued. "He was rude, he was obnoxious, he was trying to provoke the judge. Look, as you know, I have represented murderers and white-collar criminals. I have never seen anyone behave like this. They respect the court and the process."
"One last thing I would say about your question — in a way, Trump was successful today by his metric," added Katyal. "Because we're talking more about his behavior and his temper tantrums than we are about the fact that the guy committed serious fraud. It's a distraction technique, and in some ways it's working. It obviously won't work in the court of law, though."
Watch the video below or at the link here.
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