Thread by @KlasfeldReports

Good morning from New York.

Trump’s gagged, and his ex-accountant spills the beans.

Those are just two of the news items that came out of Day Two of the civil fraud trial.

Follow us for Day Three, @TheMessenger

Recap themessenger.com/politics/day-t…

After taking the bench, Engoron quips: If this were Broadway, we'd have a long run.

He's apparently referring to the daily pool of cameras photographing and filming Trump before the start of trial.

Engoron, of the cameras: "They do this every day. They look the same."

Per @AdamReissTV, the judge also noted that there are "two Donalds" in here, referring to the former president and Mr. Bender, the witness on his third day of testimony.

@adamreisstv Trump's lawyer Jose Suarez tells the judge he's gotten the message: "I also understand that in the Great State of New York it's called a triplex," pronouncing it like "triple" instead of "tri-."

Co-counsel Chris Kise quips: "Judge, in the South, it's just called apartment."

Engoron asks if they have triplexes in the South.

Kise replies: That's why we call it an apartment.

Bender's testimony begins shortly after that.

After Engoron chides Trump's attorney against performative questioning by saying "There's no jury here," Trump audibly groans and mumbles a reaction.

Questioning turns to an engagement continuance form between Mazars and Trump Org from 2016-'17.

Trump keeps noisily (but, for those of us in the gallery, mostly inaudibly) complaining about the judge's remarks throughout the questioning.

Since the time of the last post, Trump appears to have taken out his frustrations on paper, jotting down notes and whispering to his lawyers. He sometimes shakes his head and points.

This is as animated and worked up as I have seen Trump inside a courtroom so far.

Trump's settled down considerably.

Back to cross-ex.

Trump's lawyer Jose Suarez says the "buck stopped with you, Mr. Bender," a proposition the witness denies.

"We were not engaged—compilation did not require us to do" audits.

"We were not engaged to do method appraisals."

Quick recess.

"All rise."

We're back for the resumption of trial, with two notably absent Donalds: Trump, at the defense table, and Bender, on the witness stand.

(Eric Trump is in the gallery with the spectators.)

After a few minutes pass, only Bender returns (so far).

Suarez continues his cross-ex of the witness.

Before the recess, Suarez was showing Bender clauses of the engagement letters suggesting Mazars had more responsibilities than he let on during direct.

One stated if Mazars found that "modification of the standard report is not adequate to indicate the deficiencies in the financial statements," the "accountant should withdraw from the engagement and provide no other services with respect to the financial statements."

Trump finally returns to court, some 20 minutes after the resumption of witness testimony.

It's not immediately clear what held him up.

Suarez goes line-by-line with the valuations of Trump's properties, including Trump Tower ($526.8M), NIKETOWN ($287.6M), 40 Wall Street ($530.7M), and more, asking whether they were properly listed.

"Nothing came to my attention during my calculations," Bender keeps replying.

Justice Engoron encourages Suarez to lump the properties together for this back-and-forth, rather than doing it piecemeal, to speed things up.

(This is a bench trial, and so the rhetorical effect means less than creating a record.)

* during my "compilations," not calculations.

Suarez keeps going line by line, and Engoron curtly cuts him off, telling him to streamline. Trump's lawyer keeps insisting it's necessary in light of the witness's testimony.

Engoron asks how much longer cross-ex will be.

Suarez says it's end today.

NYAG's lawyer: "TODAY?"

NYAG's lawyer: "There's no jury. I don't know who we're performing for."

Engoron: "Mr. Bender is not on trial here."

Kise: I would disagree with that.

Alina Habba jumps up and echoes Kise's remark.

That was quite a scene:

Engoron got visibly frustrated by what he believed to be a performative style of questioning that dragged out proceedings too much, pounding the bench at one point and saying: "This is ridiculous."

Some news:

Trump intends to fly out to Florida soon, despite telling a judge there that he'd be in New York all week, @TheMessenger has learned.

His insiders give their view of how these three days went.

Double-byline with @MarcACaputo themessenger.com/politics/trump…

Reminder:

Trump vowed to be here all week in order to bump his scheduled deposition in his lawsuit against @MichaelCohen212 from this past Tuesday until Oct. 9.

He succeeded in delaying it.

Lunch break. Back at 2:15 p.m. ET.

In fact, the rescheduled Oct. 9 deposition date was supposed to be in NYC, under the terms of the judge’s order.

News:

Trump has filed his notice of appeal over the civil fraud ruling. @evasurovell themessenger.com/politics/trump…

@evasurovell Just before the end of the lunch recess, NYAG James responded to Trump's "baseless," "offensive" and "race-baiting" remarks just before he left for the day.

"The Donald Trump show is over," James declares, alluding to the fact that he's left court for Florida.

Deleted and replaced the prior tweet to correct a typo.

That kinda day.

These emergency alerts have sounded off in court on a lot of phones before the start of the afternoon session.

We're back.

Bender's ongoing testimony has been paused to accommodate the schedule of the next witness: Camron Harris, another accountant at Whitley Penn.

Justice Engoron takes a moment to notice a special occasion: the birthday of Kevin Wallace, one of NYAG's top counsel.

The announcement sparks applause.

"Thank you, your honor. This is a living nightmare for me," Wallace quips, to laughter in the courtroom.

Engoron notes there are a lot of people in the gallery, asking if anyone else has a birthday today, to laughter in court.

Just as NYAG's lawyer Sherief Gaber begins his direct examination of Mr. Harris, another emergency alert briefly deploys from a phone in court.

Gaber shows Harris a copy of Whitley Penn's engagement letter with the Trump Org.

Quick side note

"The ‘Donald Trump Show’ Ends — And Then FEMA Emergency Alerts Go Off During New York Trial"

Some color from a unique courtroom moment. themessenger.com/politics/trump…