(Photo
by
Brendan
McDermid-Pool/Getty
Images)
For
those
who
thought
Trump
was
just
pretending
to
want
to
address
the
court
in
his
civil
fraud
trial
—
IT
ME!
—
he
got
us
good.
As
New
York
litigator
Mitchell
Epner
said,
“That
was
not
on
my
bingo
card.”
Trump’s
attorney
Chris
Kise,
the
former
solicitor
general
of
Florida,
who
has
argued
before
the
Supreme
Court
and
knows
damn
well
how
trials go,
has
spammed
Justice
Arthur
Engoron’s
office
for
a
week
demanding
that
his
client
be
allowed
to
present
part
of
his
own
closing
argument.
After
flatly
refusing
to
agree
that
Trump
would
confine
his
topics
to
relevant,
factual
issues,
Kise
got
the
denial
his
client
desired.
Trump
immediately
howled
on
social
about
being
suppressed,
prompting
the
inevitable
bomb
threat
at
the
judge’s
home
this
morning.
But
Trump
and
his
lawyers
had
one
more
stunt
planned
for
the
day
in
their
bid
to
win
the
news
cycle.
First
Kise
and
Alina
Habba
had
yelled
for
more
than
two
hours
about
Trump’s
amazing
net
worth
and
the
supposed
witch
hunt
by
the
Attorney
General.
Then
with
just
six
minutes
left
in
their
allotted
time,
Kise
renewed
his
request
to
have
his
client
address
the
court.
This
was
Trump’s
cue.
Without
agreeing
to
the
required
preconditions,
he
launched
into
a
broadside
against
the
court
and
the
prosecutors.
“We
have
a
situation
where
I’m
an
innocent
man.
I’ve
been
persecuted
by
someone
running
for
office…
I’ve
built
buildings
all
over
the
city.
I’ve
never
had
a
problem.
Until
now…
they
want
to
make
sure
I
don’t
win
again.
This
is
election
interference,”
he
ranted,
as
reported
by
the
Daily
Beast’s
Jose
Pagliery,
who
was
in
the
room.
“You
said
you’ve
never
had
a
problem
—
haven’t
you
been
sued
before?”
the
judge
noted.
But
Trump
did
not
get
where
he
is
by
letting
reality
interfere
with
a
good
yarn
(or
anything
else.)
“I
should
have
won
it
every
time,”
he
retorted.
Kise
ignored
the
court’s
remonstrance
to
control
his
client,
counting
on
the
court’s
unwillingness
to
have
the
bailiff
tackle
a
man
with
Secret
Service
protection
—
particularly
with
a
hard
stop
at
1pm.
At
12:59,
the
judge
indicated
that
Trump
had
one
more
minute.
“You
can’t
listen
for
more
than
one
minute.
This
is
a
persecution,”
Trump
complained.
But
soon
enough
he
stormed
out
of
the
courtroom,
having
successfully
gotten
the
mic
drop
moment
he
came
for.
Slow
clap
for
an
excellent
troll,
sir,
you
won
the
news
cycle.
But
to
the
extent
that
the
trial
judge’s
entirely
discretionary
exercise
of
his
authority
to
bar
a
defendant
from
pinch
hitting
as
his
own
lawyer
was
ever
appealable,
that
issue
is
gone.
Trump
didn’t
save
his
real
estate
empire,
and
his
outburst
will
amount
to
little
more
than
a
couple
of
paragraphs
in
the
final
order
noting
that
the
defendant
is
clearly
not
remorseful
and
is
unlikely
to
change
his
behavior
if
allowed
to
retain
his
real
estate
holdings.
After
lunch,
the
prosecutors
resumed
their
closing
arguments.
In
the
end,
the
needle
never
moved,
and
Trump
is
just
as
likely
to
face
a
crippling
fine
and
the
demise
of
his
business
as
he
was
before
his
little
gimmick.
Liz
Dye lives
in
Baltimore
where
she
writes
the Law
and
Chaos substack
and
appears
on
the Opening
Arguments podcast.