Trump Junior Shocks Court When He Admits He Signed Fraudulent Bank Docs

Donald Trump, Jr. admitted during his testimony in the New York fraud trial this week that he signed the fraudulent documents that went to the banks, but he said it was because he would just sign any paper that was placed in front of him. While that would be a reasonable excuse if this were a criminal trial, the nature of this civil trial means that a statement like this could mean the end of the Trump Organization in the state. Farron Cousins explains the impact of Junior's admission.

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*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.

Donald Trump Jr. Testified of course for several days this past week in the New York fraud trial and his entire testimony, right? His defense of everything that happened, pretty much centered around the fact that, Hey, I'm just a big fat idiot, right? And I, I really wish I was exaggerating that, but I'm not, as I'd already talked about, you know, his initial first day of testimony, Donald Trump Jr. Gets up there and just says, Hey, listen, I wasn't looking at the financial statements. I got CPAs for that, right? Yeah. I'm more of a design guy. He said, I'm more of a construction guy. He said, I'm not, I'm not looking at numbers. Uh, numbers are scary. You know, I just, you know, let other people do that. But then the next day, prosecutors were asking him like, Hey, okay, you don't look at numbers, but we got your signature on these pages with these numbers. So you had to have seen these numbers because your signature's right here below 'em. What's up with that Bud? And Don Jr. Played it off, didn't act concerned. He is like, oh, I signed anything they put in front of me.

I would sign any paper that they put in front of me. He added, I'm sure I've signed dozens of these in my time as trustee. Uh oh. You've, you've signed dozens of fraudulent documents to banks. Listen, man, if this were a criminal trial, there is a slim chance that that kind of defense might get you off the hook, right? You can play stupid in a criminal trial. And the stupidity defense actually works a lot more often than you'd think it would, right? Like, Hey, listen, I know we did bad things, but I actually wasn't even aware of it. I, I'm just kind of dumb. I'm just signing my name on things. You, I'll write it on this napkin right here. Oh, I signed my name. It can get you off. Not in a civil trial, because in a civil trial, you're not trying to put somebody behind bars.

You're not necessarily trying to even prove that they were fully aware of what they were doing. All you're trying to prove is that the bad thing happened, and this was the guy in charge when the bad thing happened. And Donald Trump Jr. Admitting that, yeah, I was just signing whatever in a civil trial that's gonna doom you. But more importantly, it's going to doom the entire Trump organization. 'cause let's not forget what's at stake here, right? Essentially, the corporate death penalty, if Geron chooses to do so, he could dissolve the Trump organization. That business that Donald Trump has spent his life building will crumble in the into dust. That's it. It's gone forever until he, you know, goes to a different state and re incorporates. But

In New York, they won't be allowed to do business. So you are fighting for the life of your company, and you're admitting to the judge, the one man who holds your fate in his hand. You're admitting to him, yeah, we basically weren't paying attention when we were running this company. We were doing whatever. If people were committing fraud, who cares? I was signing my name on it. We're good. Show me a judge anywhere in this country that's gonna listen to testimony like that and not immediately think, okay, this company needs to just go away forever. It's being run by a bunch of morons. I mean, essentially with Eric and Don Jr. You got Beavis and Butthead running the show. Why would I, as the judge, with the authority to dissolve this company, why would I let it continue to exist? You are sitting here admitting you weren't doing it right, and you didn't care, and you didn't bother to double check anything. To me, that sounds like the kind of company that shouldn't exist anymore. So good job with your testimony there, Don, Jr. You may have prevented yourself from being criminally charged later on with your testimony, but you probably killed the entire company by admitting that you're a complete and total moron.