Prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office said in a court filing Wednesday that they plan to ask Donald Trump about the costly verdicts and findings of wrongdoing in his numerous civil cases if the former president decides to testify in the criminal case against him — though the permissibility of that line of questioning remains to be seen.
The prosecutors said they intend to ask Trump about the judgment in state Attorney General Letitia James’ civil fraud suit against him and his company, as well as a pair of verdicts in lawsuits brought against him by writer E. Jean Carroll. The judgments in the three cases total almost $550 million and include findings that Trump committed fraud in the AG’s case and that he’s liable for sexual abuse and defamation in the Carroll case.
District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office also plans to mention findings by the judge in the civil fraud case that Trump violated a gag order and “testified untruthfully under oath” during the trial.
They said they want to be able to bring up those findings — which Trump is appealing — in order “to impeach the credibility of the defendant” if he takes the witness stand.
Trump said last week he “absolutely” plans to testify but is under no obligation to do so.
If he does take the stand, prosecutors would also like to ask him about the verdict in the DA’s successful criminal tax fraud prosecution of the Trump Organization, and a settlement his Trump Foundation struck with the AG’s office back in 2019. A federal judge ordered Trump to pay $2 million in damages in that case after the foundation admitted in a settlement that Trump had misused foundation funds to help his 2016 presidential campaign, settle personal legal disputes and buy portraits of himself.
They also want Judge Juan Merchan to allow them to ask about a Trump lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and others that resulted in the former president and one of his lawyers being sanctioned and ordered to pay $937,989 in fees for filing a frivolous, bad-faith lawsuit. The judge in that case handed down the penalty after finding that “Mr. Trump is a prolific and sophisticated litigant who is repeatedly using the courts to seek revenge on political adversaries. He is the mastermind of strategic abuse of the judicial process, and he cannot be seen as a litigant blindly following the advice of a lawyer. He knew full well the impact of his actions.”
Prosecutors made the disclosure ahead of a type of hearing called a Sandoval hearing, which is tentatively scheduled to take place on Friday. Sandoval hearings are designed to allow defendants to make an informed decision on whether to testify by providing a pre-trial determination on the permissible scope of cross-examination by prosecutors.
Trump’s attorneys told the judge in a letter last month they’ll argue the DA’s office should be barred “from asking about these items.”
The trial, the first ever criminal trial against a former president, was off on Wednesday but resumes with jury selection on Thursday. Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment to a porn star during the closing days of the 2016 presidential election. He faces up to four years in prison if convicted.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
