developments from trump s many legal problems. we begin with developments about the former president s rough time in court over fraud today. closing arguments underway in the case against trump and his two eldest sons in the entire allegedly fraudulent trump organization. you can see trump in atep dance. he s been in more courtrooms than campaign events. he turned towards cameras every time he could. he lashed out at the judge and the attorney general. and he did his set of grievances. there were closing arguments on behalf of donald trump by trump himself got involved briefly. as we reported on this program yesterday here on msnbc, donald trump is a civil defendant here. his request to speak during closing arguments or give some sort of grand closing statement, that was denied by the judge for a simple reason. donald trump s own lawyers basically refsed the rules that would bar personal attacks. you can see some of the court sketches as that was all dealt with. now the judge
We re not going to show a lot of that. attorney general james said the ex president s financial statements were lies, they were deliberately false every year starting in 2011 and running through 2021. we re not talking about rounding errors even for rich people. we re talking about what they call fraud or lies to the tune of over $2 billion. the judge found trump and the organization liable for fraud. the question is the consequences, not whether the fraud occurred. the judge expected to announce all that decision later this month. what does james want? she says, when you take it altogether, the lies, the fraud, the pattern, not one mistake on one tax form, but the decade-long pattern she has proven, that the punishment should be quite severe. she wants a $370 million fine and to bar trump from ever doing
Big weekend of coverage at msnbc. one night before the iowa caucus, we have this special, defendant candidate trump. that s a live special hour i m leading with friends on sunday at 9:00 p.m. up next, the trump fraud trial, letitia james f expectedo speak. i ll see you in a couple minutes.
Wallace. today we re following the culmination of the new york civil fraud trial of donald trump. you may say, i ve been hearing about this for a while. here s why it s a big deal today. the trial just wrapped. we expect to hear from attorney general letitia james. i mentioned to you that we were told that past the halfway point of the last hour there could be a further delay, but it will help. we will bring it to you because it s a big inflection point in her pursuit of what she calls a fraudulent company. today trump was back in the courtroom for the first part of the day, despite not having to be there. that s his choice. the big surprise was how he ended his time with a five-minute rant that was cut off by the judge. then he held a press conference this afternoon. we did not hear anything particularly newsworthy during his news conference.
Worked with the available information? you re one of the people that contributed to the public record on this and proven not only her case, but that the fine should be that stiff? i think the issue is the kind of pain it will inflict on him to pay a fine of that amount. he s never been a wealthy as he claimsbe. he s a comfortably rich man, but he s not a multi-billionaire. $370 million i money. the bigger part of the penalty that will hurt him reputationally and in terms of his sense of his legacy is if they re precluded from doing business in the state of new york. he rose to fame and riches on his father s shoulders. his father was an authentic entrepreneur and built the family s real estate holdings that trump made great use of. all that gets tied in a bow and shoved out the door if he loses the case. the wild card here is that judge engoron has a lot of discretion