its closing arguments in donald trump s civil fraud trial after a dramatic scene in which the former president himself addressed the court. the judge had only allowed trump to speak on the condition that he focus on the facts but the president quickly veered into other territory claiming he is an innocent man being persecuted d the judge telling defense counsel please control your client. th former president has already been found liable for inflating properties to get loan deals. the judge will attempt to issue his ruling by the end of the month. yasmin vossoughian is reporting for us outside the courtroom in new york. vaughn hillyard is urbandale, iowa, also with us, renato, former federal prosecutor. somebody might argue at least in terms of drama donald trump s a tough act to follow. reporter: yeah, i think that person would likely win that argument. nonetheless, i think lee tee james has a lot in store. she is not likely to offer closing arguments to other attorneys.
machines, declare the election corrupt and investigate conspiracy claims. watch. between december 23rd and january 3rd, the president either called me or met with me virtually every day. you also noted that mr. rosen said to mr. trump, quote, doj can t and won t snap its fingers and change the outcome of the election, how did the president respond to that, sir? he responded very quickly and said, essentially, that s not what i m asking you to do, what i m just asking you to do is just say it was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the republican congressmen. just say it was corrupt. we also learned that when top doj officials refused to back his false election claims, trump wanted to install a little known doj environmental attorney and trump loyalist jeffrey clark as the acting attorney general. just hours before yesterday s hearing, federal agents raided clark s home. we ll have much more on the details of that in a moment. let s begin with cnn political correspond
Lawyers. Friends of mine from the middle east that say we used to go to syria. The place to go. Look what happened. Its so sad. But id like to see syria come back. We have a long way to help like with respect to the iran deal. Youll see what i mean by that over time. A lot of things will happen. [question inaudible] well, i dont know, i want to have peace in the world. Thats what i want. More so than the Nobel Peace Prize or any other prize. Id like to see peace. Ideally in the middle east, but in the entire world. We have a chance of doing it. North korea will be very important. Its a tremendous part of the world. It has tremendous potential. It has tremendous potential for its leader and its people. Well see how it works out. Right now were dealing with them. As i said, were dealing as though nothing happened. Theyre dealing with us, were dealing with them. Theyre working out times and meeting places and everything. In the meantime, if i read your various media, i find that maybe its
The special counsel. Did you regreat tht that dec . That was mcgahn. A lot of questions on capitol hill. He remains tight lift through the interview process today. The New York Times reports that mechanic gain cooperated with the special counsels office all because of trumps lawyers gave him the green light. The president has spent a busy two days trying to reframe these stories showing that he alone is in charge of events. This happened quote, only with my approval. Also, i allow him and all others to testify. But, to what is the question. The time reported that the intervi interviews lasted 30 hours. As he wait whether to intervene in the russia investigation. Lets start with the nbc news, white house correspondent, our jeff bennett. Mcgahn called tru kong. Reporter it appears that President Trump earned that nickname. Disgraced and discredited by bob mueller and his whole group of democratic thugs. Anybody needing that much time when they know there is no russian collusion is someon
what if it was suddenly trump tower without donald trump. some of the biggest buildings in the former president s real estate portfolio are at risk as his civil fraud trial nears its end. not only trump tower but trump park avenue, 40 wall street, 1290 avenue of the americas and two of his golf properties. joining me now, federal and white collar criminal defense attorney, caroline pelosi, and former u.s. attorney and former white collar defense attorney, paul charleston, new york times business investigations editor, and author of towers, david enrick joins me as well. can you just explain what actually could be the penalties involving these buildings? is it that his name is stripped off of them, he can t manage them, he can t collect money off