Commentary: Trump’s fraud trial strategy may be politically effective. But it’s legally disastrous
Exasperated by Donald Trump’s nonresponsive monologues during testimony in his New York fraud trial this week, state Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron finally told the former president’s lawyer to rein him in. “This is not a political rally,” the judge said. “This is a courtroom.”
Engoron, however, was mistaken. It was a courtroom and a political rally.
Trump turned his time on the stand into a tub-thumping recitation of the themes he hopes will carry him into a second term: that the deep state is persecuting him for his popularity and his election would constitute retribution
