Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast / Getty
Former President Donald Trump boasts about his children following in his footsteps. This week and last, three of the ex-president’s offspring are doing just that—following his footsteps into a Manhattan courtroom to testify as witnesses called by the State of New York in its civil fraud trial.
Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump both testified last week, and Donald Trump himself takes the stand on Monday, with Ivanka Trump slated to testify starting on Wednesday. This wasn’t, one imagines, the example the former president was hoping to set.
The case brought by the New York attorney general puts Trump’s business empire at risk. Unsurprisingly, Trump has blasted the trial as a “witch hunt” (just as he has impugned his two prior impeachments, four pending criminal cases, and a variety of other proceedings against him). But with trial judge Arthur Engoron recently having granted partial summary judgment and found systematic fraud, Trump appears to be on the verge of a devastating defeat and is in urgent need of a lifeline.