Donald Trump storms out of trial after judge denies motion to dismiss case

Donald Trump has stormed out of his $250million fraud trial after a series of legal blows that saw him fined $10,000 and his request for a directed verdict denied.

In a dramatic courtroom outburst Wednesday afternoon, the former president threw his arms up in the air before getting up and leaving in a huff, sending Secret Service agents chasing after him.

The abrupt departure came shortly after he had been fined for a second time for violating a gag order and moments after one of his lawyers finished questioning fixer-turned-foe Michael Cohen, who testified that Trump did not direct him to inflate the value of his properties.

The admission – which contradicts Cohen’s earlier testimony – prompted defense attorney Clifford Robert to ask for a directed verdict, arguing that his statement was grounds for dismissal.

Judge Arthur Engoron said it was ‘absolutely denied’ and that the case had ‘evidence all over the place.’ He also said he did not consider Cohen a ‘key witness’.

‘There’s enough evidence in this case to fill this courtroom,’ the judge said.

Later during redirect, Cohen – who on Tuesday testified that Trump had instructed him to ‘reverse engineer’ the value of his assets – clarified that he hadn’t been asked specifically to inflate the figures, comparing Trump to a mob boss who makes indirect orders.

At the end of Cohen’s testimony, Robert requested a directed verdict again, which was once again denied.

The move came at the end of a challenging day for Trump, who was also hit with another fine – this time to the tune of $10,000 – after the judge determined comments he made to reporters during a break in the trial violated a partial gag order issued three weeks ago.

Judge Engoron called Trump to the stand after the lunch recess on Wednesday to explain remarks.

Speaking outside the courtroom earlier that morning, Trump had told reporters: ‘This judge is a very partisan judge, with a person who’s very partisan sitting alongside of him, perhaps even much more partisan than he is,’ – an apparent reference to his clerk Allison Greenfield.

Trump slowly got up from his seat at a bench between his attorneys and sat in the witness box, adjusting himself before addressing his comments.

Repeating his lawyer’s earlier claims, Trump told the judge he had been referring to his former fixer who was testifying, Michael Cohen – not Greenfield.

The remark about partisans was aimed at ‘you and Cohen’, he told the judge, who ultimately found his testimony ‘not credible.’

‘The idea that that statement would refer to the witness, that doesn’t make sense to me,’ Engoron said, warning: ‘Don’t do it again or it will be worse.’

Judge Engoron had paused proceedings just before the lunch break to scold Trump for his remarks, calling it a ‘blatant, dangerous disobeyal’ of his court order.

Engoron had already ordered all participants in the trial not to comment publicly about his staff in a order imposed on October 3.

Five days earlier, Trump had been fined $5,000 after Engoron learned that an offending social media post from early October had lingered on Trump’s campaign website for weeks after being taken down – on the judge’s orders – from Trump’s Truth Social media platform.

Addressing the issue again on Wednesday, Judge Engoron said he imposed the order because ‘I don’t want anybody killed.’