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Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial got off to a dramatic start in a Manhattan courthouse on Monday, putting him face to face with his adult son, former deputies and even himself.
In his opening statement, Kevin Wallace, a lawyer for the New York attorney general, cited Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and former Trump Organization CFO Alan Excerpts from the recent video testimony of Allen Weisselberg, who served five months in prison. Sentence after conviction for tax fraud.
In perhaps the morning’s most bizarre moment, the former president, who was present at the proceedings in person, stared at a video monitor and watched his own April testimony, in which he was asked under oath whether Weisselberg had a duty to ensure his personal rights. The financial statements conformed to generally accepted accounting principles: “I would say, yes,” Trump responded in his videotaped testimony.
“Were you lying then or are you lying now?” Wallace said Monday.
Judge Arthur Engoron, who presided over the trial, ruled last week that the former president and his co-defendants had committed fraud for years by inflating the value of their assets. He ordered the suspension of business licenses of Trump-owned companies in New York and appointed a receiver to oversee their dissolution.
The trial, which begins Monday, will consider additional charges brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, including insurance fraud and falsifying business records. It will also determine what financial penalties, if any, Trump will pay and whether he and his co-defendants will be allowed to operate in New York again.
The former president faces no threat of jail time as a civil matter, but his business empire risks being unraveled.
Trump walked into the courtroom Monday morning with an exasperated look on his face. He was wearing a dark suit, blue shirt and tie. His son Eric sat behind him in the first row of the gallery. Trump, meanwhile, has zeroed in on Ngolon, whom he has previously derogatorily called “unhinged.”
Ngolon is approachable, loving and seemingly unfazed, describing himself in a self-deprecating way as a “jack of all trades” who knows a little bit about a lot of things.
Wallace argued in opening statements that the former president and his co-defendants deliberately misrepresented their net worth, inflating it by $2.2 billion a year in order to obtain favorable terms from Deutsche Bank and other lenders. loan.
“The defendants knew that high net worth was needed in order to obtain and maintain certain financial benefits,” said Wallace, who estimated that lower interest rates saved Trump tens of millions of dollars annually.
At one point, Williams played a video of a deposition from Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, in which he explained the method used to calculate the former president’s net worth. “It’s basically backing up the numbers . . . to get the numbers that Mr. Trump wants,” Cohen said.
In another clip, a smiling Donald Trump Jr. testified that he knew little about generally accepted accounting principles — other than the fact that they are “generally accepted.”
Trump’s attorney, Christopher Kise, insisted in his rebuttal that the former president’s financial statements were “true and accurate in all material respects” and that there was no intent to defraud.
“There are many ways to value a property, and all methods are accurate even if they give different results,” Case said. He argued that “current market value” is not the only way to value a property.
Kise noted that Trump’s statement contained numerous disclaimers and that Deutsche Bank conducted its own examination of the assets. He denounced Cohen as a serial liar. Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to multiple crimes, including arranging payments before the 2016 presidential election to silence two women who said they had affairs with Trump.
Kise also defended his client’s business acumen, saying: “President Trump has made billions of dollars and built one of the most successful real estate empires in the world.”
As the debate progressed, Trump appeared stern. He would occasionally cross his arms over his chest to confer with his lawyer. “This is a continuation of the greatest witch hunt in history,” he said upon arriving at the Manhattan courthouse.
The trial is expected to last until the end of December. It’s little more than a legal action as the former president campaigns to return to the White House.
He also faces criminal charges for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election results and for his handling of classified government documents after leaving office.
Additional reporting by Steff Chávez in Chicago
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