When he was president, Donald Trump had a perfect argument why he couldn’t give testimony in court: He was too busy to be bothered with such matters.
But, thanks to his landslide loss to President Joe Biden, Trump isn’t busy at all. Matter of fact, about all he does these days is host Republican leaders who want to travel to Mar-a-Lago and kiss his ring.
And now, thanks to a New York appellate court ruling on Tuesday, it appears that the failed, one-term former president will soon be giving in-person testimony in a case that began in 2015 and involves some of his bodyguards allegedly assaulting protesters, according to The Daily Beast:
“The activists had gathered outside Trump Tower to protest the Republican candidate’s derogatory comments on Mexican immigrants. On that September day, soon after the demonstrators assembled on Fifth Avenue outside the skyscraper, several members of Trump’s security team allegedly ‘violently attacked’ them and destroyed their protest banners before a crowd that included reporters.
“While president, Trump had tried to quash a subpoena that would force him to testify at the civil trial in the Bronx and sit for a videotaped deposition beforehand. In 2019, his lawyers appealed a judge’s order denying his request.
“On Tuesday, the state’s Appellate Division dismissed Trump’s appeal as moot.”
Specifically, the appeals court said that since Trump is no longer a sitting president, his appeal is now invalid. In their judgement, the court wrote:
“This appeal concerning the proper standard for determining whether a sitting President may be compelled to give videotaped trial testimony about unofficial acts in a civil action against him or her is moot given that the rights of parties will not be directly affected by our determination, and that there will not be an immediate consequence of the judgment.”
That’s not the only bad news Trump has recently gotten from the New York Court of Appeals, which also decided Summer Zervos’ defamation suit against the former president could move forward because Trump no longer has matters of state to attend to and is therefore required to be a defendant.
Trump also can’t try to claim that his testimony isn’t needed in the case of his former bodyguards, the New York court ruled just last week, stating that his testimony is relevant because the “conduct of the security guards was committed at the express or implied direction, and with express and implied approval of” the person who hired them: Donald John Trump.
This is just the beginning of the court battles Trump will be facing this year. He’s also looking at being a defendant as prosecutors in New York and Washington, D.C. (among other venues) prepare to possibly issue indictments against the former president on charges ranging from bank and tax fraud to money laundering and other financial improprieties.
Looks like Donald had better get ready to spend a large portion of his future in courtrooms.
