The main focus on Donald Trump’s myriad of legal woes shifted to Lower Manhattan in October as his civil fraud case came to trial at New York state’s Supreme Court.

New York Attorney General Letitia James brought the case against the Trump Organization and maintains that between 2011 and 2021 the company falsified financial statements regarding the development of several real estate projects and artificially inflated Mr Trump’s net worth in order to get better financing terms from banks and insurance companies.

This was done by over-stating valuations of the former president’s most prestigious holdings including his triplex penthouse at Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan and his current home at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida.

After six weeks and more than a dozen witnesses, Donald Trump and his attorneys are trying to put an end to a trial in lower Manhattan that could collapse the former president’s family business and his vast real-estate empire.

Lawyers with New York Attorney General Letitia James closed their case this week after Mr Trump and his three oldest children were questioned for more than 20 hours about years of business deals that allegedly defrauded banks, insurers and others with grossly inflated values of his net worth and assets.

On Thursday, Mr Trump’s attorneys – now with the case in their hands at the halfway point in the trial in New York Supreme Court – asked the judge for a verdict in their favour.

Judge Arthur Engoron, whose damning pretrial judgment already found the defendants liable for fraud, said he would take their arguments “under advisement” and issue a decision at another time. But he has previously indicated that he wants to hear the case through the schedule he assigned, up until the weekend before Christmas.

Mr Trump, who has repeatedly lashed out at the case, the attorney general and the judge, claimed on his Truth Social on Friday that he “TOTALLY WON”. Meanwhile, his attorneys are preparing to introduce their own long list of witnesses – starting on Monday with his oldest son, Donald Trump Jr.

The judge overseeing the criminal case against former president Donald Trump in the Southern District of Florida has rejected the ex-president’s most recent attempt to delay his trial on charges that he violated the Espionage Act and obstructed a probe into how he still had classified documents at his home long after his presidency had ended.

In an order issued on Friday, Judge Aileen Cannon rejected Mr Trump’s request to delay the trial that she scheduled for 20 May 2024 earlier this year.

Andrew Feinberg has the details.

Eric Lewis writes for Independent Voices

“In this complex and difficult time, there is one proposition that is inarguable: Donald Trump cannot be elected president of the United States without endangering American democracy, the rule of law, nuclear security and countless other requisites of a stable and secure world.

No risk should be taken which might materially increase the likelihood that Trump and his cronies will be settling scores at home and abroad in January 2025. So, the polling data released on Sunday by the New York Times and Siena College, showing Trump ahead in five of six swing states, cannot be ignored. Nor can the indications of significant defections in the Democratic base of Black, and especially Hispanic, voters.”

Read Eric’s full opinion piece below.

Late night host Jimmy Kimmel roasted Ivanka Trump on Wednesday night, after she struggled to recall much as she gave testimony in her father’s $250 million civil fraud trial.

The former president, his sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr, and other Trump Organization executives and associates are currently being sued for defrauding banks and investors by overvaluing Mr Trump’s net worth and assets by as much as $2.2bn a year to gain more favourable financing terms. Mr Trump has denied the allegations.

Ms Trump hired her own attorney and successfully removed herself as a defendant in the case earlier this year, but her attempts to dodge testifying ultimately failed.

But not everyone in the New York crowd was thrilled to see the former president.

Cameras captured actress Nia Renee Hill, the wife of comedian Bill Burr, appearing to flash two middle fingers at the former president as he looks out at the audience, oblivious to the gesture.

Mr Trump entered the arena after the preliminary bouts accompanied by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and UFC president Dana White.

James Austin Johnson’s Donald Trump gatecrashed the debate stage and mercilessly mocked his rivals, who remained frozen behind him — just as they are in the polls.

Eric Lewis writes for Independent Voices

“In this complex and difficult time, there is one proposition that is inarguable: Donald Trump cannot be elected president of the United States without endangering American democracy, the rule of law, nuclear security and countless other requisites of a stable and secure world.

No risk should be taken which might materially increase the likelihood that Trump and his cronies will be settling scores at home and abroad in January 2025. So, the polling data released on Sunday by the New York Times and Siena College, showing Trump ahead in five of six swing states, cannot be ignored. Nor can the indications of significant defections in the Democratic base of Black, and especially Hispanic, voters.”

Read Eric’s full opinion piece below.

Republican US Rep Elise Stefanik, a top-ranking member of the House GOP, filed a complaint on 10 November that invokes similar rhetoric from Mr Trump’s attorneys in their defence of the former president in and out of the lower Manhattan courtroom.

Judge Arthur Engoron has faced widespread scrutiny among Republican officials and Mr Trump’s supporters for a summary judgment that found him and his co-defendants liable for fraud, as laid out in hundreds of pages of evidence and in depositions stemming from the case from New York Attorney General Letitia James, who sued Mr Trump, his adult sons and chief associates last year.

Judge Engoron also has faced criticism for issuing a gag order that prevents parties in the case from disparaging court staff. Mr Trump has violated the order twice, and his attorneys’ statements in the courtroom prompted him to widen the order to include them, too.

Ms Stefanik accused the judge of “inappropriate bias and judicial intemperance” while overseeing a “disgraceful lawsuit” against the Trump family’s business.

The judge overseeing the criminal case against former president Donald Trump in the Southern District of Florida has rejected the ex-president’s most recent attempt to delay his trial on charges that he violated the Espionage Act and obstructed a probe into how he still had classified documents at his home long after his presidency had ended.

In an order issued on Friday, Judge Aileen Cannon rejected Mr Trump’s request to delay the trial that she scheduled for 20 May 2024 earlier this year.

Andrew Feinberg has the details.