Lawyers representing former President Donald Trump’s eponymous company at a trial in New York on Monday seemingly attempted to mislead jurors during opening statements, prompting the judge presiding over the case to call for a recess.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office has accused the Trump Organization of engaging in tax evasion — providing employees, for example, with fringe benefits and perks (such as buying them cars or paying for their children’s tuition fees) rather than increasing their salaries in order for the company to owe less in taxes.
According to tweets from Vice journalist Greg Walters, who covered the proceedings live, lawyers for the Trump Organization were misleading jurors on what the company had been charged with, leading prosecutors to make several objections during the first phase of the trial. At one point, Judge Juan Merchan, noticing some jurors’ fatigue over the starting-and-stopping of the opening statements from Trump Organization lawyers, called for a 15-minute recess and excused the jury from the room.
The judge “caution[ed] the lawyers in the room not to explain the law (after Trump Org lawyers claimed the case was really only about cheating on personal income taxes),” Walters reported in a tweet.
“I will permit you to say that he acted solely for his benefit, and that’s it,” Walters tweeted, quoting Merchan. “It’s a confusing area of the law, and for them to get confused at this point is not going to help anybody.”
The move was unusual, Walters said.
“I have never seen a judge excuse a jury for 15 minutes in the middle of an opening argument. … Like, multiple sustained objections (3x so far) are one thing, but a lengthy break in the middle is just… weird,” Walters tweeted.
“I think it’s fair to say this [is] not an auspicious start for the Trump Org defense,” the journalist added.
The trial on day one also showcased the Trump Organization’s “master plan” for its defense, Walters reported: to blame everything on longtime company chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, claiming he was the one in charge of giving employees extra benefits in lieu of higher pay. Weisselberg has already pleaded guilty to 15 counts of tax fraud and is expected to testify at the trial sometime later, though he is not considered by prosecutors to be a cooperating witness.
The Trump Organization’s legal argument could work, in theory, but only if the Manhattan district attorney’s office can’t prove that the company was aware that Weisselberg provided those fringe benefits. Notably, Weisselberg reportedly received similar benefits from the company, which is still paying him a $1 million salary.
The trial is set to end in about four weeks. If Trump is found guilty, the Trump Organization would have to pay a fine of around $1 million, and could be restricted from obtaining new loans or engaging in new business deals in the future.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment. We are presently looking for 98 new monthly donors before midnight tonight.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy