The trial is scheduled to last until the end of Dec but is expected to end sooner.
Trump arrived in the courtroom & strode past AG #LetitiaJames, seated in the first row, w/o making eye contact & immediately took a seat at the defense table.
While pool photographers took his picture at the defense table, looking solemn, in camera-ready way, Judge #Engoron looked amused.
Wallace, in explaining how he will need to prove that the #Trumps committed #conspiracy, plays a video of #MichaelCohen, Trump’s longtime fixer. #Cohen explains that #Trump wanted to be publicly understood as having a certain net worth, & that Cohen’s job, as well as that of the Trump Org's fmr CFO, #AllenWeisselberg, was to reverse engineer the value of each of Trump’s assets to arrive at that number.
Cohen’s testimony at a congressional hearing spurred James to open the investigation. #Cohen is also a key #witness in 1 of Trump’s #criminal cases. #Trump stared intently at the screen while the Cohen video played. Arms folded, shaking his head.
As James's case proceeded from investigative to #lawsuit, the public focused on particular assets’ inflated values. Wallace argued, to advance his case regarding the #conspiracy, the #assets were vehicles by which Trump burnished his overall net worth.
> Former Donald Trump attorney Michael #Cohen said a business #fraud ruling against the former president is likely to put him out of business and could push him into bankruptcy. “The damages, in my est…