Former President Donald Trump, center, sits in the courtroom with his legal team before the continuation of his civil business fraud trial at New York Supreme Court, Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2023, in New York. Photo: Seth Wenig: AP
Donald Trump will be back in court Tuesday for his New York civil fraud trial, but a face-to-face showdown with former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen will have to wait.
Cohen, a key witness in the state’s case against the former president, postponed his testimony, saying he needed to attend to a health problem.
“I’m not bowing out. I’m not nervous to testify. I’m not being paid off. I have a medical issue that I need to attend to. It’s as simple as that,” Cohen said last week on X, formerly known as Twitter. Judge Arthur Engoron said Monday that the earliest Cohen can now testify is Oct. 23.
Cohen’s absence is scrambling the trial schedule in its third week, forcing the New York attorney general’s office to call other witnesses earlier than planned. It’s also robbing the proceedings — which have been heavy on spreadsheets and accounting talk — of the drama of a Cohen-Trump confrontation, at least for now.
Trump, who is campaigning for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, attended the trial’s first three days, Oct. 2-4. The trial is expected to last into December, but a lot has happened so far.
THE LAWSUIT: WHAT IS THE TRIAL ABOUT?
The trial stems from a lawsuit New York Attorney General Letitia James filed in 2022 alleging that Trump and top executives at his family company, the Trump Organization, conspired to pad his net worth by billions of dollars on financial statements provided to banks, insurers and others to make deals and secure loans.
Among the allegations: Trump claimed his Trump Tower penthouse was nearly three times its actual size and worth $327 million, more than any other apartment had ever sold for. He also valued his Mar-a-Lago estate as high as $739 million based on the idea that the…
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