President Trump succeeded in giving a closing statement on the final day of his civil fraud trial even though the presiding judge had previously denied his request to do so. 

“I am hoping to speak to help my lawyers reveal all the defects of this case,” Mr. Trump told reporters before he entered the courtroom. “We’ll see whether or not the judge allows me to speak. Perhaps he won’t but I certainly would like to.”

Security measures were heightened at the state supreme court at Manhattan, after the judge, Arthur Engoron, received a bomb threat at his Long Island home ahead of closing arguments on Thursday morning. Despite a slight delay, the proceeding went ahead as planned. Defense attorneys presented their closing statements before the lunch break, while state attorneys were given the afternoon to present theirs. In a surprising and unusual turn of events, Mr. Trump, the defendant, also ended up with permission to take the microphone.   

“I am an innocent man,” he proclaimed. “I’m being persecuted by someone running for office, and I think you have to go outside the bounds.” Mr. Trump was referring to the New York attorney general, Letitia James, an elected Democrat, who was sitting in the pews behind him, while he spoke from his seat at the defense table. 

Ms. James has accused Mr. Trump, his two eldest sons, former executives of the Trump Organization, and 10 of his companies of decades-long business fraud. She alleges that the Trumps falsified financial statements and exaggerated the value of their properties in a scheme to gain favorable bank loans and insurance policies. 

Before the trial had even begun, Judge Engoron found the Trumps guilty of civil fraud in a “partial summary judgment,” which is not uncommon and enables a judge to issue a pre-trial ruling based on evidence and arguments submitted by both sides. The judge can still change this decision if he deems the evidence presented during the trial was otherwise convincing. There is no jury.      

Six more counts brought by Ms. James, which include conspiracy and insurance fraud, remain to be decided. Also at stake is how much the Trumps should pay in damages. In her original lawsuit, filed in September 2022, Ms. James asked the court to make the Trumps pay $250 million. She recently raised that claim to $370 million based on the evidence her team presented during the two-and-a-half-month trial that heard more than 40 witnesses and ended its testimonies in December.  

“The financial statements were perfect. The banks got all their money back. They were as happy as can be,” Mr. Trump told the court on Thursday. “I have built buildings all over the city. The person in this room hates Trump and used that to get elected,” he added, again referencing Ms. James.

Mr. Trump pointed out that the Zurich Insurance Group, “one of the most prestigious insurance companies in the world,” still insures his properties. Why would they continued to do so, he asked, if his companies had indeed committed fraud? He called the statute that Ms. James used to sue him, a New York State law, a “vicious statute,” adding, “We should receive damages for what we’ve gone through.” 

Throughout the trial, Mr. Trump’s team has sought to prove that there is no victim of his supposed fraud, as the banks from which he borrowed money using his allegedly inflated property values were pleased with his business and continued to service him. 

The banks “rolled out the red carpet and they’re dragging President Trump through the door,” Mr. Trump’s attorney, Christopher Kise, said. ”He’s one of 10 or 25 people in the world that the banks want to welcome through their doors.”

In his remarks, Mr. Trump also continued to repeat his argument that the case was a “political witch hunt that should be set aside.” The judge then reminded him to stay on subject and not deviate into political rhetoric, triggering an attack from Mr. Trump. “You have your own agenda,” a now visibly upset Mr. Trump told the judge. “You can’t listen for more than one minute.” 

Judge Engoron ignored the insult and asked Mr. Trump’s defense attorney, Christopher Kise, to control his witness. 

Mr. Trump’s address to the court on Thursday followed an email exchange, filed on the court’s docket on Wednesday, in which Mr. Kise and the judge had discussed Mr. Trump’s wish to address the court on the day of closing arguments. 

If Mr. Trump agreed, Judge Engoron wrote, to follow the same rules that attorneys follow — namely to speak only on relevant matters and “to stay within the four corners of the evidence” — he would grant the request.   

“He may not seek to introduce new evidence. He may not ‘testify.’ He may not comment on irrelevant matters. In particular, and without limitation, he may not deliver a campaign speech, and he may not impugn myself, my staff, plaintiff, plaintiff’s staff, or the New York State Court System, none of which is relevant to this case,” Judge Engoron’s email read. He further warned that if Mr. Trump were to violate the current gag order, imposed against him, he would immediately be led out of the courtroom by court officers, and be fined $50,000.     

Earlier during the trial, the judge had issued a gag order against Mr. Trump and his attorneys, after they repeatedly accused his principal law clerk, Allison Greenfield, of being politically “biased” and of engaging in improper courtroom behavior. They complained that Ms. Greenfield, who sits next to the judge on the bench, was rolling her eyes, whispering into the judge’s ears, and passing notes to him. Mr. Trump also posted a photograph of her alongside Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, mockingly calling her, without any proof, “Schumer’s girlfriend.”   

Mr. Trump has already been fined a total sum of $ 15,000 for violating the gag order twice, and Judge Engoron extended the gag order to cover Mr. Trump’s attorneys due to their extensive complaints about Mr. Greenfield. Mr. Trump’s attorneys appealed the gag order ruling to a higher court. 

Though the gag order was briefly paused, their request was ultimately denied. Mr. Trump’s attorneys plan to take their appeal to New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, arguing that the gag order violates their client’s and their own First Amendment, freedom of speech right. In their repeated complaints about Ms. Greenfield, Mr. Trump’s legal team appears to be carefully laying grounds for an appeal if, as expected, Judge Engoron issues as adverse ruling.   

Judge Engoron has defended the gag order, stating that his chambers have been swamped with hate mail and threats since the beginning of the trial. Court officials said that Ms. Greenfield, in particular, was the object of foul and hateful calls to her personal cell phone and antisemitic invective. Mr. Trump’s lawyers, in court flings, denied impugning Ms. Greenfield’s faith. 

On Thursday morning, the Sun spoke to the director of communications at the New York State Office of Court Administration, Al Baker, who was telling reporters waiting outside the courthouse that “extra layers of security” had been added “out of a concern for the safety of Justice Engoron” after the judge had received a bomb threat at his home.   

When the Sun asked Mr. Baker if this was the worst threat the judge and his staff had received yet during this tumultuous trial, Mr. Baker asked in return, “The worst? I don’t know. Charles Hollon filed an affidavit and that was only a portion of it, and if you read through that, it’s pretty withering.” 

In response to Mr. Trump’s gag order appeal, an attorney for the New York State Unified Court System filed an affidavit from a New York court officer assigned to the Judicial Threats Assessment Unit, Charles Hollon.   

The affidavit disclosed that the judge and his staff are “being inundated with hundreds of harassing and threatening phone calls, voicemail messages, and emails.” The threats, he wrote, come “on a daily basis.” The situation had compelled his unit to “constantly reassess and evaluate” security methods used “to ensure the safety of the judge and those around him.”

Judge Engoron is yet another key figure, involved in one of Mr. Trump’s legal disputes, who was threatened. Both homes of Special Counsel Jack Smith and of District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, who presides over the election case in Washington D.C, were swatted in recent weeks.  

On Thursday, Judge Engoron refrained from mentioning the scare he experienced in the morning during the court proceeding. He only made one joking reference to the harassment on a more general note, when he told one of the defense lawyers during their argument that he, too, does indeed receive many “emails.” 

Overall, Thursday’s closing arguments may have turned out rather favorably for Mr. Trump. Despite being initially denied the right to speak, which was related to a deadline his attorney failed to meet on Wednesday, the 45th president was able to present his arguments inside the courtroom. He could have spoken even longer. The judge told the attorneys, “this could have gone a different way.” 

Mr. Trump did not stay for the afternoon session. Instead he held a press conference at 40 Wall Street, a nearby Trump building. 

“I thought we’ll come down to 40 Wall Street, which is a great building and you get a chance to see one of the nicest buildings in New York, very convenient place,” Mr. Trump told reporters during the livestreamed news conference. “I don’t have to pay the rent … it’s been a very successful building.”

He repeated that the case had no merit, that “they don’t have any facts. They don’t have any evidence against us,” and he did not miss the chance to insult Ms. James again, saying she suffered from a “serious Trump derangement syndrome.”  

Meanwhile, the state attorneys presented their closing arguments. When a state attorney, Andrew Amer, began to present evidence meant to prove that Mr. Trump’s adult sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, had both acted with the intent to defraud, the judge interrupted. He told the state attorney that Ms. James’s post-trial brief had not provided sufficient evidence to show Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. had intended fraud. “I haven’t seen it,” the judge said.  

But outside the courthouse, Ms. James was confident about her case.   

“I want everyone to know that the personal attacks really don’t bother me,” she told reporters, “The fact is that this trial has shown, and we have produced evidence, about the scope, the scale, the depth, the breadth of the illegality, the fraud that personally enriched Donald Trump and his family.”

The judge informed everyone that he would try to publish a written decision by January 31. He thanked the attorneys for their hard work, as well as the sketch artists, the court officers and even the journalists. 

After the last day of this epic trial came to an end, the court officer told the audience, “Anyone that wants to step out, may do so now.” He paused, “Well not wants to, has to.”