There was bound to be A Moment on Monday when Fulton County (Ga.) Inmate No. P01135809 took the stand in his New York civil fraud trial, which he's already lost, by the way. To paraphrase the old quip, now we're just haggling about the price. Anyway, there was bound to be A Moment and, when it came, according to the folks inside the courtroom, it was choice.

Prosecutor: Did you get copies of the statements in 2021?Defendant: I was so busy in the White House with China, Russia, and keeping the country...Prosecutor: You were not the president in 2021.

Otherwise, it seems that the Defendant and his lawyers spent most of the morning feuding loudly with Judge Arthur Engoron, who repeatedly told the Defendant's lawyers to get control of their client, and to remind him that he was in a court of law, and not on stage before the adoring masses in Bug Tussle. Keeping the Defendant on point was a nearly impossible job, especially since the Defendant's lawyers were nearly as truculent as their client. From NBC News:

Alina Habba, one of Trump's attorneys, told reporters during the lunch break that Engoron is "unhinged" and had "predetermined" that Trump was guilty. "I don't want to hear what he has to say," Habba said, quoting the judge's admonishment to Trump's lawyers this morning after Engoron asked Trump to give more succinct answers during his testimony. "That was what rang true loud and could not have been more honest, coming from the judge who was already predetermined that my client committed fraud before we even walked into this courtroom," Habba said.Habba went on to say that the country is "falling apart" and there is "corruption in courtrooms where attorneys are gagged...You have a right to hire a lawyer who can stand up and say something when they see something wrong. But I was told to sit down today, I was yelled at," Habba said. Habba also criticized James, saying that she was using the trial to "make a name for herself...[James] said this morning that the numbers don't lie and they won't lie in this case. Well, Miss James, I have a message for you: The numbers didn't lie when you ran for governor, and that's why you dropped out," Habba said.

She also said she declined to tell the Defendant to control himself because she didn't want to impinge upon his First Amendment rights, which has to be the lamest exercise of that argument in American legal history. It also served only to highlight something Judge Ergoron had said in the midst of the storm of noise from the witness stand: that the Defendant's smoke screen answers to direct questions would cause him to draw "negative inferences" as regards the his eventual ruling. And, remember, the Defendant already has lost this trial and all we're doing now is haggling about the price. Any "negative inferences" that the judge draws can be measured now in decimal points.

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Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976. 

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