The ongoing civil fraud trial involving former President Donald Trump in New York City has brought to light the substantial fees charged by expert witnesses defending him.
What Happened: On Friday, key witness Eli Bartov, an expert in the trial, revealed his compensation to be around $877,500, equating to an hourly rate of $1,350 for approximately 650 hours of work.
The Trump Organization and Trump’s Save America PAC partly funded this hefty sum. The revelation emerged during Bartov’s cross-examination, as reported by CBS News.
Another expert for the defense, Frederick Chin, who testified on real estate valuation matters, billed $850 per hour over 1,000 hours, totaling $850,000. In comparison, the state’s expert, Michael McCarty, earned about $350,000 at a rate of $950 per hour, albeit for fewer hours.
The financial implications of these expert fees are significant, especially considering the Save America PAC’s expenditure of $40 million in the first half of this year on Trump’s various legal battles.
According to the report, during Thursday’s proceedings in the fraud trial, Trump spent the entire day at the courthouse, occasionally addressing the crowd outside the courtroom.
He consistently praised Bartov, an accounting professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, and commended his testimony multiple times.
“This is a disgraceful situation. Never seen anything like it,” said Trump. “But this expert witness, highly respected by everybody, with a resume that few people have ever seen before, said there was no fraud, there was no accounting fraud, there was nothing.”
The former president praised Bartov’s credentials as “a leading expert, a leading person, a man who sits on the Pulitzer committee, most respected person, the Stern School, NYU, top professor, a very honest man who by the way, (is) very honorable,” and said, “If he didn’t agree, he wouldn’t say what he’s saying. And he said these were incredible loans. I didn’t even need the money.”
Trump is expected to make another appearance on Dec. 11. The trial is approaching its final stages, with the continuation of Bartov’s cross-examination scheduled for Tuesday.
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