Former President Donald Trump's massive civil judgment for fraud in New York is entirely of his own doing, biographer Tim O'Brien told MSNBC's Joy Reid on Friday evening.
Judge Arthur Engoron issued the ruling in the case originally brought by state Attorney General Letitia James, who demonstrated that Trump and his two adult sons systematically lied about their property valuations to manipulate their tax liability and loan terms with banks.
"There was just his attitude, the ruling points out his behavior," said Reid. "Overall, Donald Trump rarely responded to questions he was asked. He frequently interjected long, irrelevant speeches. He refused to answer the questions directly or, in some cases, at all, severely compromised his credibility. Is this the hubris of wealth? Wealthy people feel like I don't have to pay my bills, I don't even have to go to the bank. I go to my private wealth manager and they give me money?"
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"Well, even within the world of extremely wealthy people, Donald Trump is in a class by himself," said O'Brien. "Most wealthy people are not this unhinged in a courtroom, and haven't had the sort of decades of financial malfeasance and pushing the edges of civil society to get what he wants, and the rule of law. And it finally caught up with him."
"One thing in the ruling, when Engoron said that the defendant's disdain for the crimes they were charged with borders on the pathological — I'm paraphrasing, but he certainly used the word pathological — and all of Trump's antics and his lawyers' antics that were scoring him big points on the political trail, that he sort of felt he was free to do, I think, and his lawyer, Alina Habba, who has now brought two massive financial penalties on her client's shoulders, attacks the judges in these free-for-alls in every case. And I think they thought they were going to roll the courtroom."
"I was surprised by the severity of the financial penalty in this case," he added. "I thought what Engoron was going to do is kick Trump out of New York, maybe shave this $370 million ask down to a much lower amount. And I think you can read into this document that he was sick of the way Trump conducted himself. And he wanted him to pay for it."
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