Trump fraud ruling live: Donald Trump found liable in New York financial fraud lawsuit

Eric Trump, the former president’s second son, has claimed that his father’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida is speculated to be worth “over a billion”.

A judge in New York has found Donald Trump liable for fraud for falsely inflating his wealth and assets as he built his business empire.

The judge said Mr Trump overvalued Mar-a-Lago, estimating it was worth as much as $612.1m, though an assessor said its market value was no more than $27.6m.

“In an attempt to destroy my father, a Judge in New York just ruled that Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach Florida is worth approximate ‘$18 Million dollars’,” Eric Trump wrote on Truth Social.

He then argued that the property was worth “over a billion”, making it “arguably the most valuable residential property in the country”.

“It is all so coordinated and corrupt.”

Initially, when a grand jury indicted Sen Bob Menendez (D-NJ) on Friday, it looked like he might once again survive. After all, the last time he was indicted, a hung jury saved him. His colleague from New Jersey, Sen Cory Booker, even testified to his character in 2017 despite the fact that Mr Booker wanted to run for president.

When the trial was done, he returned to his perch atop the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and delivered a quintessentially New Jersey warning to his political foes that would make Tony Soprano tell him to tone it down.

“To those who left me, who abandoned me in my darkest moment, I forgive you,” he said. “To those who were digging my political grave so they could jump into my seat, I know who you are and I won’t forget you.”

That seems to have changed over the weekend. New Jersey’s Democratic Gov Phil Murphy called on him to resign, as did much of New Jersey’s Democratic congressional delegation save for his son, Rep Rob Menendez.

Unsurprisingly, the Senate is taking longer in showing Mr Menendez the door. Despite the partisan rancor, the upper chamber of Congress has always been clubbier than the rowdy House of Representatives. With only 100 members, they tend to see each other more and the existence of the filibuster requires them to cooperate more. Oftentimes, if a state has Senators from two separate parties, they won’t campaign against each other since it’s considered a breach of decorum.

Donald Trump on Monday lashed out at attorney general Letitia James after a court in New York found him liable for fraud and canceled his Trump Organization’s business certification.

“The widespread, radical attack against me, my family and my supporters has now devolved to new, un-American depths, at the hands of a DERANGED New York State Judge, doing the bidding of a completely biased and corrupt ‘Prosecutor’, Letitia James, who ran for office based on a ‘GET TRUMP’ platform, before even knowing anything about me,” the former president said on Truth Social.

In a separate post, he added: “My Civil Rights have been violated, and some Appellate Court, whether Federal or State, must reverse this horribe, un-American decision. If they can do this to me, they can do this to YOU.”

Donald Trump took to Truth Social to mock Fox News, joking that the network’s “voice” was suffering from an inflammation.

“Fox News was our VOICE, but sadly, that VOICE has developed a serious case of Laryngitis!!!” the former president wrote on Tuesday.

Earlier on Tuesday, Mr Trump was clearly upset at the focus on the other candidates in the Republican presidential primary.

“I watched Fox & Friends this morning, and it is totally unrecognizable. All they do is ‘gush’ over job seeking candidates that are 50 Points, plus, down to your favorite President, or speak endlessly about people that will never run and, without cheating, could never win…And whatever happened to Steve? No wonder their ratings are way down. MAGA!” he wrote.

Mr Trump also bashed one of the moderators for Wednesday night’s Republican debate, which the ex-president will not attend.

Weeks after challenging his political rivals to a mental acuity test, Donald Trump seemed to confuse members of the Bush family as he recalled his 2016 presidential election campaign.

The former US president referred to his previous rival for the Republican nomination, Jeb Bush, as the person who “got us into the Middle East” – apparently mistaking him for his brother, former president George W Bush.

George W Bush, who served as America’s 43rd president, ordered US troops into Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks.

His younger brother Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida, ran against Mr Trump for the Republican nomination in 2016, but lost out in the South Carolina primary.

During the primary, Mr Bush received just under 8 per cent of the vote, while Mr Trump stormed to victory with over 32 per cent.

Mr Trump campaigned in South Carolina on Monday, and Fox News carried his speech uninterrupted for 20 minutes.

Just after 3.10pm EST, Mr Trump began speaking about the “ridiculous debates that nobody’s watching,” referencing Fox News’ first Republican presidential primary debate.

Mr Trump skipped that debate, and made sure everyone knew he was going to snub the event.

He called the debate “the lowest rated debate in history,” which is a nonsense statistic, before reminding the crowd that he decided to spend his evening with another conservative media figure.

Jurors who will participate in a sprawling criminal case against Donald Trump and 18 of his allies for their alleged efforts to overturn election results in Georgia will not be publicly identified by name, according to a ruling from the judge presiding over the case.

An order from Fulton County Supreme Court Judge Scott McAfee on 25 September prohibits filming or photographing jurors and prospective jurors and recording their conversations or statements.

None of the parties involved in the case may disclose any identifiable information about them – including their names, addresses, phone numbers and employment information – or the contents of juror questionnaires or other jury notes and documents, unless permitted by the court.

The response follows security concerns from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, whose office cited fears that the case could be compromised and the defendants’ right to a fair trial “endangered” if “the identities of the jurors become known to the public” after a wave of online threats towards grand jurors who voted to indict the former president.

Prosecutors sought a court order to block the former president and his co-defendants, as well as members of the press and others in the court, from disclosing information about the jury pool.

Author Michael Wolff has claimed that Tucker Carlson was the source for his claim that Florida Governor and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis shoved and possibly also kicked the rightwing pundit’s dog during a lunch.

Mr Wolff told Mediaite’s podcast The Interview that Mr Carlson told him about the awkward incident before the broadcaster then chose to deny the allegation.

The author writes in his new book The Fall: The End of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty that Mr DeSantis and his wife Casey DeSantis had dinner with Mr Carlson and his wife Susie at their home in Boca Grande on Gasparilla Island on Florida’s western coast.

Mr Wolff writes that the DeSantises didn’t make a great impression on the couple, that the governor spoke in an “outdoor voice indoors,” that he focused on his own achievements, and that they had a complete “inability to read the room”.

The governor also allegedly “pushed” the Carlsons’ dog under the table.

Former President Donald Trump was heard repeatedly shouting the word “hang” in his office while live TV showed a mob of his supporters at the Capitol chanting “hang Mike Pence” during the January 6 riot, according to Cassidy Hutchinson’s bombshell new book.

In her new book Enough, the former White House aide recounted the events of the turbulent day — including what went on at the White House. She reported finding her former boss, Mark Meadows, in the oval dining room, where the “group is having a heated conversation about the rioters.”

She heard the president yelling while the TV was on, Ms Hutchinson wrote. “What is he saying? I can’t make it out. I hear him say ‘hang’ repeatedly. Hang? Hang? What’s that about? Mark hands his phone back to me. The cue for me to return to my desk.”

When she returned to her office, she started putting some of the pieces together when she came across a tweet from Mr Trump. The tweet read: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our country and our constitution, giving states a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!”

Ms Hutchinson wrote, “I’m struggling to process what’s happening as Mark [Meadows], [White House counsels] Pat Cipollone, Pat Philbin, and [senior adviser] Eric Herschmann stumble back into the office. I overhear their conversation, and suddenly everything makes sense.”

In her new memoir, Enough, Ms Hutchinson reveals what it was like working for Mr Meadows, who served as White House chief of staff under Donald Trump from March 2020 until January 2021.

Between her more serious claims of a chaotic work environment, Ms Hutchinson gave readers some insight into a lighthearted moment where Mr Meadows unknowingly drank alcohol.

Mr Meadows, a “dedicated and faithful” practicing Southern Baptist, does not drink alcohol and apparently never had until the moment he pulled a White Claw from his office refrigerator believing it to be a non-alcoholic seltzer.

In her book, Ms Hutchinson says a staffer put some of the hard seltzers in the refrigerator to celebrate after the 2020 election but forgot to remove leftover cans.