Donald Trump came face to face with his adult sons, his former lieutenants and even himself as the first day of his civil fraud trial began in dramatic fashion in a Manhattan court on Monday.
The opening argument delivered by Kevin Wallace, a lawyer for New York’s attorney-general, featured clips from recent video depositions of Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr and Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer for the Trump Organization who served a five-month jail term after being convicted of tax fraud.
In perhaps the most surreal moment of the morning, the former president, who attended the proceedings in person, peered into a video monitor to watch his own testimony from April, in which he was asked under oath whether Weisselberg was responsible for ensuring that his personal financial statements complied with generally accepted accounting principles: “I would say, yes,” Trump replied in the videotaped deposition.