If all goes according to plan, Donald Trump Jr. will testify at the Trump Organization's fraud trial in New York on Wednesday, as the first of the Trump offspring to be called to the stand, Eric Trump is scheduled to appear on Thursday and Ivanka Trump will reportedly testify next week. Their illustrious father is himself slated to appear on Monday, which will actually be the second time Donald Trump has personally taken the stand in this case. The first of those was a brief appearance last week, when he was cited for violating the gag order imposed by the judge and ordered to pay $10,000. In any event, we can expect quite a show over the next week, with the Trump family band in full effect.
You may (or may not) recall a deeply strange Trump press conference after the 2016 election, when he claimed he was "turning over" the business to Donald Jr. and Eric, while insisting he didn't need to do it but wanted to because he "didn't like the way it looked." His tax attorney, Sheri Dillon, spoke at length about the arrangement, standing before a table piled high with documents that Trump had supposedly signed but wouldn't allow the press to examine. In fact, Trump never personally divested from the Trump Organization or his nested network of companies in any way, and continued to market his golf resorts and hotels from the White House — talking them up whenever he got the chance and staying in them wherever he traveled, often at significant cost to the taxpayers. Foreign agents and supplicants of all kinds filled the family coffers, spending millions of dollars at Trump properties to curry favor and gain access during his entire four-year term (and thereafter). It was the most flagrantly corrupt behavior of any president in American history.
