What you need to know after closing arguments in Trump’s civil fraud trial

The civil fraud trial of Donald J. Trump went off with a bang Thursday, with the former president delivering an impassioned defense during closing arguments.

Mr. Trump attacked both the New York attorney general who brought the case and the judge who oversaw it, casting himself as a victim of what he said was their partisan crusade against him. The attorney general’s office countered that, beyond his denials and antics, Trump orchestrated a massive fraud in which he inflated his assets to obtain favorable loans and other benefits.

The dueling stories marked a chaotic end to a process that had unnerved Mr. Trump and threatened his family business.

Now, after months of proceedings, with reams of documents and testimony from Mr. Trump and his adult sons, the decision rests with the judge, Arthur F. Engoron. There is no jury.

Here are the key takeaways from the closing arguments, and what they mean for Trump in the coming months.

If Trump gets the chance, he will do what he wants.

When a lawyer for Mr. Trump raised the possibility of the former president speaking on his own behalf during closing arguments, Judge Engoron was open to the idea.

“In a trial without a jury, I am inclined to let everyone have his or her say,” he wrote in an email last week. He warned that Mr. Trump would have to abide by the rules that apply to lawyers. He should stick to the facts of the case and the law and refrain from attacking Letitia James, the attorney general; the judge himself; or the court’s staff.

The attorney, Christopher M. Kise, objected, but the judge persisted. And when Mr. Kise missed a deadline to reach an agreement, Mr. Trump appeared to have given up.

He didn’t have that.

On Thursday, Mr Kise again asked the judge whether the former president could deliver his own closing arguments. The judge seemed inclined to grant this, but addressed the former president directly and asked him to restrain himself and adhere to those conditions.

That was all the permission Mr. Trump needed. He took the microphone, said he didn’t see how he could stick to the facts and the law if that’s what the case went on, and then monologued for five minutes. He attacked the judge and said: “You have your own agenda.” He went after Ms James and accused her of ‘cheating on me’.

Perhaps the most surprising feature of Trump’s closing argument was that he voluntarily stopped after five minutes. When the lunch break came, Judge Engoron asked him to end, and Mr. Trump agreed.

It will take several weeks before a final ruling is made.

The attorney general says Mr. Trump and the other defendants violated New York law. She asks that the judge impose a fine of about $370 million — which she says is the amount Trump made from the fraud — and that the former president and other defendants be barred from New York’s real estate industry and from governing from any company. the state.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers counter that Ms. James has no evidence linking the former president to any fraud. “There has not been a single witness who has come into this courtroom, Your Honor, who has said that there was fraud,” Mr. Kise said in his closing argument.

But the public will remain on edge until the end of this month at the earliest. Although Judge Engoron said Thursday he knew everyone was eager for a decision, he only promised he would do his best to get one by Jan. 31.

Many signs point to Judge Engoron’s ruling against Mr. Trump. In the past, he was persuaded by Ms. James’ arguments, including before the trial, when he ruled in her favor and found that Mr. Trump had committed fraud by inflating his assets and thus his net worth. Most of the trial concerned whether Mr. Trump’s conduct violated other New York laws, as well as the potential penalties.

Good omens for Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.

While Judge Engoron appears ready to bring the hammer down on Trump, the former president’s sons might do better.

When Ms. James denounced Mr. Trump, she also named Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. as defendants. But on Thursday, as the attorney general’s office argued that they played a role in preparing some of Mr. Trump’s financial statements, the judge expressed doubt that Ms. James had proven her case against them. In particular, he seemed skeptical that the attorney general had sufficiently linked Donald Trump Jr. to wrongdoing.

“I didn’t see it,” Judge Engoron said, offering the Trump sons some hope that they could escape relatively unscathed.

Appeals will stretch the case.

It is unlikely that Judge Engoron’s decision this month will mark the end of this case, or even the beginning of the end. This is probably just the end of the beginning.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers have already appealed some of the judge’s decisions — including the preliminary ruling that found Mr. Trump committed fraud — and an appeals court is likely to hear much of the case. If Trump is unsuccessful there, he could also try to appeal to New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals.

These efforts will likely take months and may not be resolved by Election Day as Trump continues to seek a second term as president.

The trials against Trump have only just begun.

As important as the civil fraud case was to Mr. Trump, and as hard as he fought it for years, Ms. James cannot jail the former president.

But Trump still faces 91 charges spread across four criminal indictments in courthouses along the East Coast, including for his role in a hush-money deal with a porn star and his attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss. If convicted, he faces years behind bars.

The timing of the tests is of great importance. Mr. Trump has tried to postpone it until after the election. If he wins, things would almost certainly come to a standstill.