Defense witness David Miller, an expert in insurance underwriting, testified that the Zurich insurance company worked with the Trump Organization largely to protect its relationship with their broker, AON Risk Solutions.

"The relationship with AON was very important, and keeping business intact was very important," Miller said about Zurich, which he said made a "business decision" to insure the Trump Organization's properties.

The testimony appears to be a move to weaken the New York attorney general's allegation that the Trump Organization used their inflated financial statements to get progressively favorable surety terms.

Judge Arthur Engoron was skeptical to qualify Miller as an expert before he relented to the defense's request.

"I don't see why you're an expert in what was just said," Engoron said after Miller spent 20 minutes listing his professional experience.

Both Engoron and state attorney Andrew Amer, who called the testimony a "waste of time," criticized Miller's ability to testify about the decisions made by Zurich and AON.

The defense’s case will likely conclude one week ahead of schedule, according to defense attorney Clifford Robert.

Based on the remaining witnesses, the defense team is now planning to rest its case by Dec. 8.

Once the defense rests its case, the New York attorney general has an opportunity to present a rebuttal case, followed by closing arguments from both sides.

Week 8 of Donald Trump's fraud trial resumes this morning with the defense's sixth expert witnesses.

Apart from the testimony of Donald Trump Jr., the defense's case last week largely relied on multiple experts who supported the claim that asset valuation is more of an art than a science.

Similar to the state's lone expert witness, who was paid $350,000 for his testimony, Trump's expert witnesses during the first week of the defense's case were paid a hefty fee for testifying -- while others testified as a professional courtesy to Trump. Expert witness Gary Giulietti acknowledged his personal friendship with the former president, while Steven Witkoff said he had donated over $2 million to Trump's presidential campaign.

New York Attorney General Letitia James noted those connections in a social media post.

"Several of these experts are longtime friends and golf buddies of Donald Trump. One had donated millions of dollars to Donald Trump's campaign and his son even got married at Mar-a-Lago," she said.

With his limited gag order temporarily lifted on Thursday, Trump is continuing to rail against his civil fraud trial on social media, calling for the prosecution of New York Attorney General Letitia James, Judge Arthur Engoron, and Engoron's law clerk.

Describing the case as a "horribly handled persecution of a political opponent," Trump alleged that Engoron himself committed fraud by undervaluing his assets in his pretrial ruling, and that his clerk and James were complicit in the case.

"The World is watching this illegal Witch Hunt," Trump wrote.

Describing Engoron's clerk as a "co-judge" and "highly partisan," Trump's posts over the weekend were the second and third time the former president took aim at the clerk since an appeals court temporarily lifted the gag order preventing him from attacking Engoron's staff. In both posts, Trump explicitly mentioned the clerk by name.

Engoron on Friday denied Trump's request for a mistrial, which alleged bias on the part of the the judge, writing in his ruling, "As I have made clear over the course of this trial, my rulings are mine, and mine alone. There is absolutely no 'co-judging' at play."

Trump attorney Jesus Suarez will continue his cross examination of former Deutsche Bank risk management executive Nicholas Haigh when Trump's civil trial resumes this morning.

Deutsche Bank was the Trump Organization's largest single lender between 2011 and 2022, loaning the former president upwards of $300 million through the bank's private wealth management division.

Describing himself as an "ultimate decider" of the loans' riskiness, Haigh testified Wednesday that his decision-making process relied on Trump's financial statements -- documents that the New York attorney general alleges were fraudulent.

"I assumed that the representations of the assets and liabilities were broadly accurate," Haigh said yesterday.

Earlier witnesses have testified about how Trump's financial documents were drafted, finalized, and sent to banks -- but Haigh is the first witness to testify from the perspective of the banks, which the attorney general says were allegedly deceived by Trump's inflated financial statements.

Suarez, during his first hour cross examining Haigh on Wednesday, said Deutsche Bank was a sophisticated company that profited from the loans.

Haigh also acknowledged that the bank failed to conduct its own independent appraisals of Trump's top properties, and did not rigorously examine his financial information.