Judge Told Trump Lawyers to Stop Yelling in Court

The judge in Donald Trump's New York state fraud case asked the former president's lawyers on Monday to lower their voices after attorney Alina Habba was "practically yelling" at him, according to a reporter at the courthouse.

Judge Arthur Engoron is presiding over the trial in the $250 million civil lawsuit brought by New York's attorney general, Letitia James, against Trump, his adult sons and their family business. Trump is accused of inflating his net worth by billions of dollars to secure favorable loan terms from banks. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Appearing on MSNBC, Susanne Craig of The New York Times described the scene inside the courtroom during the first day of the trial, noting that Habba became "very animated" at one point when voicing her complaints to Engoron.

The judge reportedly sparred verbally with Trump's defense team multiple times during Monday's proceedings, including a reminder to the attorneys that a motion to dismiss the case as a "witch hunt" brought against Trump by James was already denied and affirmed by a New York appellate court.

Engoron also pointedly told the courtroom that "nobody asked for" a jury trial, which means that he alone will preside over the bench trial. The lack of a jury has led to speculation that Abba forgot to properly request one, although she has since denied that it was her fault that a jury is not being used for the trial.

Craig, who watched the proceedings on closed-circuit television in another room of the courthouse, said the exchange between Abba and Engoron became "very heated" and the judge later tried to cool the situation.

Abba "gets up and was very animated, was practically yelling to the point where, after she was done, the judge said to the next lawyer that came up to keep the volume down because it was so loud," Craig recalled.

"She was saying that Letitia James—she had run simply 'to get Trump,' and this was just all about this vendetta that Letitia James has," Craig said. "And then she started in on repeating some of the claims that they've already gotten into trouble for."

Newsweek reached out to Habba via her law firm for comment.

One point of contention between Engoron and Abba, according to Craig, came when she accused the judge of incorrectly declaring the value of Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate at $18 million during a summary judgment last week. This resulted in her being corrected by the judge.

"He said, "Hang on. I never said that.' And he didn't say it. His ruling that came down last week said that there have been valuations for property appraisal that put it at that," Craig said.

Of Abba's heated comments, Craig said: "Her audience was an audience of one. It was Donald Trump."