The second day of testimony from the defense's expert accounting witness prompted an argument between attorneys for the two sides over the basic question of what the case is about -- leading defense lawyers to make their fourth unsuccessful request for a directed verdict to end the trial.
The arguments came toward the end of direct testimony by accounting expert defense Eli Bartov, who asserted the New York attorney general's case lacked merit because there was no evidence of any fraud on Trump's statements of financial condition, and that any errors about the values of Trump's properties were unintentional and therefore immaterial.
When the defense attempted to question Bartov about those values, state attorneys objected -- prompting defense attorney Christopher Kise to leap from his seat.
"If they don't call anyone to dispute our values, how have they proven their case?" Kise said.
Judge Arthur Engoron, in a pretrial ruling, already decided that Trump conducted a decade's worth of business using fraudulent financial statements, and state attorney Kevin Wallace suggested that Bartov's findings do not change those findings.
"You can't use false statements in business. That's what the summary judgment decision is all about. I think it is pretty much what the rest of this case is about," Engoron said in response to Kise's question.
Kise argued that if the attorney general doesn't prove what Trump's asset values should have been, the case is a "completely rudderless ship" that needs to be "moored to some sort of standard."
"You can't just say it's a misstatement because you feel like it," Kise argued.
"The standard is truth," Engoron responded.
The exchange prompted Trump's legal spokesperson, Alina Habba, to make the defense's fourth motion for a directed verdict, arguing that Engoron is "wasting our time" if he won't consider their expert testimony.
"They have not proven their case. They haven't," Habba said in her request for a directed verdict.
"Denied," Engoron said within seconds of the request, without hearing a response from lawyers for the New York attorney general.
