Trump fraud case updates: Ex-US president’s trial begins in New York

That’s it for our live coverage of the first day of Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial.

You can catch up with today’s events by reading our key takeaways about the Trump team’s strategy, the opening arguments and more.

Thank you for joining us.

Trump spent nearly seven hours in court on Monday.

Al Jazeera journalist Gabriel Elizondo said Trump left the courtroom at the end of the day much as he entered it: with protestations of innocence.

“He basically echoed what he’s been saying for many weeks now,” Elizondo said. Before departing, Trump repeated to reporters that he had done “nothing wrong” and that the case amounted to “election inference”, as it took him away from the 2024 campaign trail.

This civil trial, however, is just beginning for the former president – and he has four criminal indictments to face on top of it.

“As for this trial, there are more than 100 people on the potential witness list, meaning it could go on for weeks or perhaps even months, into December,” Elizondo explained.

Trump and his two adult sons – Donald Jr and Eric – were under the microscope in Monday’s trial. But one high-profile member of the Trump family was not there: daughter Ivanka Trump.

Why is she not a part of the ongoing trial? Attorney General James had originally pursued Ivanka Trump as part of the civil fraud case, along with other top leaders in the Trump Organization. James argued Ivanka Trump had a hand in inflating the company’s assets.

But in June, the Appellate Division of New York’s Supreme Court dismissed the claims against Ivanka Trump, ruling that they were barred by the state’s statute of limitations.

While claims over alleged wrongdoing after February 2016 were permissible, the court said, Ivanka had stepped back from involvement in the Trump Organization and was not accused in the lawsuit of any misconduct during that later time period.

Just after 4:30pm (20:00 GMT), the judge ended trial proceedings for the day. The attorney general’s first witness, accountant Donald Bender, is expected to resume his testimony on Tuesday morning. Trump left the courtroom shortly afterwards.

As the civil fraud case against Donald Trump unfolds, lawyers on both sides are directing their arguments to one central figure in the courtroom: Judge Arthur Engoron.

That’s because he alone — with no jury — will be determining the facts and outcome of the case, in what is known as a “bench trial”.

All this raises the question: Why isn’t there a jury, as there had been in previous civil cases?

Engoron explained that “nobody asked for” a jury in this case. He also noted that state law would have likely prevented a jury from sitting on the case: Attorney General Letitia James has invoked Section 63 (12) of the New York Executive Law, a powerful tool that allows her to pursue “fraudulent” behaviour.

In court filings completed in January, James checked a box for a “trial without jury”, as she sought not only hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties but also a “permanent injunction” against Trump from doing business in the state.

As Trump’s legal woes play out in a New York courtroom, his team continues to campaign for his re-election in 2024, setting up a possible rematch of his failed 2020 race against Democrat Joe Biden.

A Monmouth University poll released earlier in the day registered relatively “little enthusiasm” for either candidate becoming his party’s presidential nominee.

Overall, 37 percent of all voters in the survey were “enthusiastic” for Trump to be named the Republican nominee while 32 percent were “enthusiastic” for Biden to get the Democratic nod.

Those statistics, however, were higher among voters who identified by party affiliation. Among Republicans, 78 percent were excited about Trump versus 68 percent of Democrats saying they were enthused about Biden.

Voters were also more likely to feel that Biden is “too old” for the presidency with 76 percent of those surveyed agreeing with that statement.

Biden is 80, and Trump is 77.

Bender was previously granted immunity to testify on the government’s behalf in the earlier tax fraud case against the Trump Organization.

On the first day of the current trial, lawyers for Trump tried to issue a “blanket objection” to Bender’s testimony, citing the statute of limitations.

Judge Engoron, however, allowed Bender to continue his testimony.

Donald Bender, a longtime accountant and tax consultant for Trump, is testifying as the attorney general’s first witness in the New York fraud civil case.

Bender previously testified in a separate trial in 2022, one that charged top Trump Organization executives with misrepresenting their income on tax forms.

In his testimony at that time, Bender said Trump reported losses on his tax returns every year for a decade, including nearly $700m in 2009 and $200m in 2010. His testimony confirmed long-held suspicions about the former president’s tax practices.

Bender — a partner at Mazars USA LLP who spent years preparing Trump’s personal tax returns — explained that those losses, from 2009 to 2018, included net operating losses from some of the many businesses Trump owns through his Trump Organization.

In December 2022, the Trump Organization was found guilty of tax fraud in the case Bender testified in.

Many Republicans — like Representative Carlos Gimenez of Florida — continue to stand behind Trump as he faces a civil trial over alleged fraud. In a Monday post on the social media platform X, Gimenez wrote:

“President Trump continues to be persecuted for purely political reasons by fringe, leftist district attorneys. The American people see right through these shameful show trials against President Trump!”

But while Republicans, by and large, have been wary of criticising Trump’s legal woes, some of his 2024 rivals are becoming more vocal in attacking the former president on other fronts.

On Monday, for instance, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis took aim at Trump’s border policies, saying he failed to follow through on a promise to make Mexico pay for the US border wall:

“Admitting that the famous promise from 2016 to have ‘Mexico pay for the wall’ was just an empty campaign slogan is bad enough. What makes it worse is that there is actually a way to get Mexico to pay for the wall: impose fees on remittances sent to Mexico (and other countries) by illegal aliens.

“As President, I will get this done. No more bluster! Results are all that matter!”

Here are some key dates leading up to today’s trial: