Trump’s Funhouse Mirror
Terry H. Schwadron
Nov. 7, 2023
From the outset, I don’t really care how much money Donald Trump and his family-run Trump Organization will have to pay in penalties for a court-ordered finding of fault in manipulating valuations of his properties to gain advantage both with lenders and with tax authorities.
The court hearing his case in New York already has decided the main issue — that the actions by Trump and company were fraudulent.
But what did interest me about a reportedly scowling Donald Trump finally taking the witness stand yesterday in this state civil action repeatedly returned to the idea that Trump cannot abide living by rules of any sort — other than those of his own making.
What does command attention is how this egoistic man who wants to again be president cannot take in the circumstances before him, adjust, and offer anything that comes close to a relevant response. What can we expect from such an individual by putting him back in the White House besides unregulated self-interest and vengeance in lieu of policy for the country.
Instead, his testimony — as duly reported through the day — was alternately circuitous about whether rules, this time about accountancy and truth, as well as to the rules of being in a courtroom, should apply to him at all, and about how only he as a master real estate developer could possibly know what his properties might be worth.
Any other reading, he was quick to acknowledge, merely made questioning him a matter of political interference.
It’s a forerunner for the criminal trials just ahead, and the yet rising prospects that Americans may vote this guy into office anew. For someone who forgoes televised debates, our most useful image of Donald Trump may be as defendant in which he believes only he has a lock on what matters.
Reality v. Fantasy
Indeed, Trump was inconsistent in answering specifics raised by the massive documental evidence file covering several years and owning up to personal involvement in offering “suggestions” for listed but competing valuations of the same property when shared for different purposes. He acknowledged using his valuations to “induce” lending decisions, cited as a key fact in the fraudulent practices, though he “hoped” the statements were true.
Because it is a trial before a judge, the questioned jumped around in a way that a jury trial probably would not. But the Trump strategy on answers was to make as many about the injustice of the proceeding as about the content of the questions.
From a legal viewpoint, the experts called for commentary seemed to find his testimony overall helping the prosecutors led by New York State Attorney General Letitia James.
But this was about politics and personal image, the defense of Trump the master builder and businessman, not about the law. And Trump shunned the Fifth Amendment protections on which he had relied during a pre-trial deposition to use the court as a speaking platform.
For those of us merely checking in, it was those volleys between Judge Arthur F. Engoron that drew attention, since the judge slapped Trump down for political tangents on the stand to remind him that this was a courtroom, not a political rally. Still, Trump persisted with claims of political interference, unwarranted charges, failed marketplace understanding, and biased judgments against him.
Unlike his sons, who claimed they just signed anything put before them without question, Trump used the opportunity to remind all — but especially the judge — of his savvy business acumen, which he values far above the mere requirements of law. The judge used the opportunity to remind Trump that he is a witness in a legal proceeding, not a candidate for emperor. The testiness was palpable, according to those in the room, particularly as Trump used questions meant to solidify involvement in accountancy claims with personal parries against the judge and prosecuting lawyers that spurred rolling of eyes and verbal jousting.
In a trial in which the judge threatened to dismiss him as a witness, Trump emerged saying the day I gone very well for him.
What I took away from yesterday’s testimony had little to do with the case. Rather it was a distorted portrait of someone so in love with himself that he could not parse reality from the fantasy of a carnival funhouse mirror.
That alone should represents a danger that should decertify his candidacy.
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