Michael R. Sisak and Eric Tucker
NEW YORK — Donald Trump testified in court as a football team owner, casino builder and airline buyer. He boasted in his affidavit that as president he had prevented nuclear war and saved “millions of lives.” Other times, he worried about the dangers of flying fruit.
After decades of trials and legal disputes, Trump is now resuming his role as a witness under unusual circumstances. He’s a former Republican president fighting to save the real estate empire that propelled him to stardom and the White House.
Mr. Trump is scheduled to testify Monday in a New York civil fraud trial on a deeply personal matter that is central to his image as a successful businessman and his control over high-profile properties such as Trump Tower. They are threatening to lose their rights. New York Attorney General Letitia James’ long-awaited testimony in the case follows testimony last week from her eldest son, Trump Organization executive Eric Trump Jr., and Donald Trump Jr. His eldest daughter, Ivanka, is scheduled to testify on Wednesday.
Mr. Trump has testified in court in at least eight trials since 1986, according to an Associated Press review of court records and news reports. He has also been questioned under oath in more than a dozen depositions and regulatory hearings.
In 1985, he was called to testify before Congress as owner of the USFL’s New Jersey Generals, testifying on behalf of his attorney and friend Roy Cohn at the state disciplinary hearing that led to Cohn’s disbarment. In 1986, in an early flash of his flame-mongering career, President Trump told the New Jersey Casino Commission that plans to build a freeway overpass near his own casino would be “a disaster.” “It’s going to be a disaster.”
Those testimonies, some of which were recorded on thousands of pages of transcripts and videotapes, provide clues as to what approach Trump may take in Monday’s testimony. These show clear similarities between Mr. Trump as a witness and Mr. Trump as president and current presidential candidate. His rhetorical style in court over the years reflects his political fervor, a mixture of ego, charm, defensiveness, aggression, sharp language, and inflection. He is belligerent and arrogant, but at times tends to be vague, hedging, or negative.
Testifying in the USFL’s 1986 antitrust lawsuit against the NFL, Trump denounced allegations that he spied on NFL officials at one of his hotels, calling the allegations “so false. I’m tired of that interpretation.”
In 1988, during his bid to buy Eastern Airlines’ Northeast Shuttle service, Mr. Trump displayed his charisma, beaming at the judge’s female law clerk during a break in testimony at a federal court hearing. , shook hands with the bailiff. Washington. President Trump testified that the $365 million purchase, which was later approved, would be a “huge morale boost” for employees.
On the stand in a 1990 boxing lawsuit, Trump described his planned fight with Mike Tyson at one of his casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey as “one of the best rematches you could have.” Trump, who was accused by two men of cutting them out of the riverboat gambling project, expressed his ignorance in 1999, saying, “I was shocked by the whole incident. I had no idea who these people were.” I professed it.
Trump was briefly called to the witness stand last month to explain comments made outside court in a New York case in which a judge said he violated a limited gag order.
Before that, he last testified in court in 2013, two years before launching a victorious presidential campaign. An 87-year-old widow living in the Chicago suburbs filed a lawsuit over changes to the terms and conditions of a hotel and high-rise condominium she purchased as an investment. Trump became increasingly agitated as her testimony progressed, at one point raising his arms and yelling, “And she sued me. I can’t believe it!”
In 1990, Trump testified on behalf of about 200 undocumented Polish workers hired to demolish buildings to make way for Trump Tower that he lost a lawsuit over his company’s failure to pay pension contributions. did. A year later, he was in court again in Manhattan, claiming that the man had a contract to develop a playing card board game and was owed 25% of the profits he made from “Trump: The Game.” gave unfavorable testimony.
Mr. Trump won this and another lawsuit in 2005, testifying that he was “absconded” by a construction company that overcharged him $1.5 million for work at a golf course in Westchester County, New York.
Mr. Trump has sometimes avoided responsibility or responsibility in the past when asked about his business and financial dealings. In a 2013 deposition regarding a failed Florida condominium project, President Trump accused employees of filling out paperwork stating they were developing the project when in fact they were not. Another refrain in Mr. Trump’s deposition is that he can’t believe he could be taken seriously for something like that. He is advertising his real estate project.
“People always want to do the best they can with their wealth,” Trump said in a December 2007 deposition in a lawsuit against journalists who accused him of disrespecting his wealth. Stated. “No different from any other real estate developer. No different from any other businessman or politician.”__Associated Press writer Jill Colvin contributed to this report.