Donald Trump is set to appear at the Manhattan federal courthouse today where he will testify as a defendant in his $250m civil fraud lawsuit.

The lawsuit was brought forth by the New York attorney general, Letitia James, who is accusing Trump and several top executives – including his eldest sons – from the Trump Organization of fraudulently inflating the value of the former president’s properties to secure better loans from banks.
“The number of grossly inflated asset values is staggering, affecting most if not all of the real estate holdings in any given year,” the lawsuit, which James filed last September, states.
The judge overseeing the trial, Arthur Engoron, ruled in September that Trump committed fraud for years as he expanded his real estate empire. Engoron’s ruling came as part of a rejection of Trump’s attempt to throw out the lawsuit against him.
Last Friday, Engoron extended a gag order in the trial to Trump’s lawyers. The order prohibits Trump’s lawyers from making comments about “any members of [Engoron’s] staff”. The extended gag order came after heated exchanges last week between Engoron and the defense team, which raised complaints over the frequency of notes passed between Engoron and his law clerk, which they argued suggests bias.
In response to Trump’s lawyers last week, Engoron angrily said: “Sometimes I think there may be a bit of misogyny in the fact that you keep referring to my female principal law clerk.”
He warned Trump’s lawyers to “not refer to my staff again” and said that his law clerk is a “civil servant” and that “she’s doing what I ask her to do”.
Engoron has already fined Trump $15,000 for publicly attacking his clerk on social media. Trump has also launched attacks against Engoron himself, calling the judge a “fraudster” and a “Trump hating, radical left, Democrat operative judge”
With the court closed on Tuesday for election day, Trump’s hearing could very likely go into Wednesday, when his daughter Ivanka Trump is scheduled to testify.
The former president’s testimony will follow the testimonies from his two adult sons, Eric and Donald Jr, who repeatedly claimed last week that they do not recall or have knowledge surrounding the statements of the financial conditions at the heart of this trial.