Trump civil fraud case: Judge fines Trump $354M, says frauds 'shock the conscience'

Only 15 minutes into what is expected to be a three-hour cross-examination, Judge Arthur Engoron snapped at defense lawyer Jesus Suarez for asking redundant questions.

"I see why this is going to take two or three hours. Some questions become three or four more questions," Engoron said, interrupting the cross-examination to request that Suarez shorten his questions.

That prompted Trump lawyer Chris Kise to criticize Engoron for placing an unfair standard on the defense team.

"You never give them speeches. You never limit their questions," Kise said about Engoron's approach to the attorney general's legal team. "I think it's unfair."

Kise stressed that the cross-examination of the state's sole expert witness is particularly important since his testimony is likely to play into the judge's calculation of Trump's potential fine.

"This witness is the only witness they have that even hints ... about ill-gotten gains," Kise said.

Engoron, however, refused to back down.

"I stand by my rulings and statements," the judge said.

Defense attorney Jesus Suarez began what is expected to be a marathon cross examination of the state's expert witness, Michiel McCarty, by attempting to use his words against him.

"Historically banks have been willing to lend to high-net-worth individuals at low rates because they get repaid?" Suarez said, citing McCarty's direct examination.

"That is correct," McCarty said.

Suarez then reminded McCarty that Trump's loans were paid on time -- a point that the former president has reiterated during his appearance in court and on social media.

Suarez then asked if McCarty had charged the attorney general's office $950 per hour for his expert analysis.

"That's my standard rate, yes," said McCarty, who estimated that his total bill for his analysis was $350,000.

The state's expert witness, Michiel McCarty, calculated that Donald Trump's lenders lost $168 million in potential interest between 2014 and 2023, according to a report he presented in court.

McCarty's testimony appeared to reinforce a central tenet of New York Attorney General Letitia James' case: that Trump's misrepresentations in his financial statements cost banks potential earnings from interest, even if the banks made money on the loans.

State attorney Kevin Wallace directed McCarty to a footnote in Judge Engoron's earlier summary judgment order about the concept of lost interest, in which Engoron said, "The subject loans made the banks lots of money; but the fraudulent SFCs [Statements of Financial Condition] cost the banks lots of money. The less collateral for a loan, the riskier it is, and a first principle of loan accounting is that as risk rises, so do interest rates. Thus, accurate SFCs would have allowed the lenders to make even more money than they did."

McCarty, who said he agreed with this assessment, ultimately found that banks lost a total of $168,040,168 in potential interest from loans related to four of Trump's properties in Miami, New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.

Trump attorney Chris Kise fiercely objected, arguing that McCarty was testifying about facts not established during the trial. During questioning, state attorneys declined to ask a Deutsche Bank executive if the bank would have still done business with Trump had they known his financial statements were inflated.

"They are not ill-gotten gains if the bank does not testify it would have done it differently," Kise said.

"I decided these were ill-gotten," the Judge Engoron replied.

Following Wallace's direct examination of McCarty, defense attorney Jesus Suarez began his cross-examination.

Listing companies like Marriott, Fannie Mae and AT&T, the New York attorney general's lone expert witness, Michiel McCarty, began his testimony by outlining some of the deals he worked on during his nearly 50-year career.

McCarty said that he has worked as an expert witness on "dozens of cases" and testified at 15 trials. But he acknowledged that he had limited experience with the compilation of statements of financial condition, prompting an objection from Trump's lawyer Chris Kise.

"It appears that he does not have the specific experience relevant to the purpose he is here," Kise argued.

Deemed an expert by Judge Engoron, McCarty went on to explain the report he wrote after reviewing Trump's finances.