The Daily Fuckup

By Sept. 25, 2023, Donald Trump’s New York civil fraud case was sitting at a procedural choke point. The court had not yet ruled on the attorney general’s request for partial summary judgment, and the bench trial on the remaining claims was still scheduled to begin the following week, on Oct. 2, 2023. ([nycourts.gov](https://www.nycourts.gov/LegacyPDFS/press/PDFs/PSNY-V-Trump-Civ-1.pdf?utm_source=openai))

The case turned on a simple but consequential allegation: that Trump and Trump Organization entities had repeatedly inflated asset values and used those numbers to secure business advantages. The state’s suit, filed in 2022, said those statements were not isolated mistakes but part of a continuing pattern. That made the Sept. 25 waiting period important because the next ruling would determine whether the fraud claim itself had already been established before trial. ([ag.ny.gov](https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2022/attorney-general-james-sues-donald-trump-years-financial-fraud?utm_source=openai))

Justice Arthur Engoron issued the partial summary-judgment order on Sept. 26, 2023. The official court record later described that ruling as granting the state’s motion on liability, while the Oct. 2, 2023 bench trial proceeded on the remaining issues and the later remedy questions were handled in subsequent posttrial proceedings. ([ag.ny.gov](https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/decisions/trump-decision.pdf?utm_source=openai))

So the real story on Sept. 25 was not that the case was finished, or even that a verdict was pending. It was that the case was one ruling away from moving into a new phase. For Trump, whose business brand depended on the claim that he could read deals better than everyone else, that was the kind of date that could turn a civil case into a public reckoning. ([ag.ny.gov](https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2024/attorney-general-james-wins-landmark-victory-case-against-donald-trump?utm_source=openai))