NEW YORK
\nDonald Trump defended his real estate empire and his presidency in a face-to-face clash with the New York attorney general suing him for fraud, testifying at a closed-door grilling in April that his company is flush with cash \u2014 and claiming he saved \u201cmillions of lives\u201d by deterring nuclear war when he was president.
\nTrump, in testimony made public Wednesday, said it was a \u201cterrible thing\u201d that Attorney General Letitia James was suing him over claims he made on annual financial statements about his net worth and the value of his skyscrapers, golf courses and other assets.
\nJames sued Trump last September, alleging he inflated the value of assets like his Mar-a-Lago estate for at least a decade. Her lawsuit seeks $250 million in penalties and a ban on Trump doing business in New York.
\nIn documents filed in support of civil suit, claimed that Trump and some of his associates submitted \u201cgrossly inflated\u201d numbers to banks and insurers \u201cto secure and maintain loans and insurance on more favorable terms.\u201d
\nShe said Trump routinely overvalued his net worth by billions of dollars each year between 2011 and 2021..
\nThe scheme resulted in \u201chundreds of millions of dollars in ill-gotten savings and profits,\u201d the documents alleged.
\nJames\u2019 lawsuit against the current Republican frontrunner in the 2024 presidential race dates back to last year, when she accused Trump, some of his children and the Trump Organization business of tax and financial fraud.
\nTrump and his children also stand accused of deflating the value of certain Trump Organization assets \u2014 including golf clubs, luxury hotels and other properties \u2014 to reduce taxes.
\nThe trial is due to start October 2, with a preliminary hearing September 22, though James, a Democrat, is seeking to have the court resolve the case before it goes to trial based on the documents submitted Wednesday.
\nThey allege Trump overstated his wealth each year between 2011 and 2021, including the years he was president, between 17 and 39 percent \u2014 amounting to $812 million and $2.2 billion each year.
\n\u201cBased on the undisputed evidence, no trial is required for the Court to determine that Defendants presented grossly and materially inflated asset values,\u201d to help them conduct \u201cbusiness transactions and defraud banks and insurers,\u201d prosecutors argued.
\nIn January, the Trump Organization was fined $1.6 million by a New York judge in a criminal tax and financial fraud case.
\nIf James\u2019 civil case against Trump goes to trial, it will be one more for the candidate to have to juggle while also zipping across the country on the campaign trail.
\nTrump is facing four criminal trials for actions allegedly taken before, during and after his presidency \u2014 state cases in New York and Georgia and two federal cases in Florida and Washington.
\nTrump\u2019s defense
\nTrump\u2019s lawyers released Trump\u2019s 479-page deposition transcript in a flurry of court filings ahead of a Sept. 22 hearing where a judge could resolve part or all of the lawsuit before it goes to trial in October.
\nSitting across from James at her Manhattan office on April 13, Trump said, \u201cyou don\u2019t have a case and you should drop this case.\u201d Noting his contributions to the city\u2019s skyline, Trump said \u201cit\u2019s a shame\u201d that \u201cnow I have to come and justify myself to you.\u201d
\nInterrogated about the truthfulness of financial statements he gave to banks, Trump repeatedly insisted that, legally speaking, it didn\u2019t matter whether they were accurate or not.
\n\u201cI have a clause in there that says, \u2018Don\u2019t believe the statement. Go out and do your own work.\u2019 This statement is \u2018worthless.\u2019 It means nothing,\u201d Trump testified. Given the disclaimer, he said, \u201cyou\u2019re supposed to pay no credence to what we say whatsoever.\u201d
\nIn a legal filing Wednesday, James urged Judge Arthur Engoron to grant summary judgment on one of seven claims in her lawsuit \u2014 that Trump and his company defrauded lenders, insurers and others by lying about his wealth and the value of his assets.
\nTo rule, Engoron needs only to answer two questions, James\u2019 office argued: whether Trump\u2019s annual financial statements were false or misleading, and whether he and the Trump Organization used those statements while conducting business transactions.
\n\u201cThe answer to both questions is a resounding \u2018yes\u2019 based on the mountain of undisputed evidence\u201d in the case, James\u2019 special litigation counsel Andrew Amer said in a 100-page summary judgment motion.
\nEven if Engoron rules on the fraud claim, he would still preside over a non-jury trial on six other remaining claims in the lawsuit if it is not settled.
\nTrump\u2019s lawyers are asking Engoron to dismiss the case entirely.
\nThey argue that many of its allegations are barred by a statute of limitations and that James has no standing to sue because the entities Trump supposedly defrauded \u201chave never complained, and indeed have profited from their business dealings\u201d with him.
\nTrump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination in next year\u2019s presidential election, has been indicted four times in the last five months \u2014 accused in Georgia and Washington, D.C., of plotting to overturn his 2020 election loss, in Florida of hoarding classified documents, and in Manhattan of falsifying business records related to hush money paid on his behalf. Some of Trump\u2019s criminal trials are scheduled to overlap with the presidential primary season.
\nTrump testified that he only had the financial statements made so he could see a list of his many properties and said he \u201cnever felt that these statements would be taken very seriously,\u201d but that financial institutions would occasionally ask for them. Some of the values listed were based on \u201cguesstimates,\u201d he conceded.
\nTrump answered questions with such verbosity at the April deposition \u2014 veering from evasiveness to bluster to filibuster at times \u2014 that one lawyer worried his seven hours of sworn testimony could go until midnight.
\nIt was a reversal from a deposition last year, before James filed her lawsuit, in which Trump refused to answer all but a few procedural questions. At that earlier deposition, Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination more than 400 times.
\nTrump testified in April that his company, the Trump Organization, has over $400 million in cash. He claimed Mar-a-Lago is worth $1.5 billion and a golf course he owns near Miami is worth $2 billion or $2.5 billion. He said he believes he could sell another golf course he owns in Scotland to the Saudi-backed LIV golf league \u201cfor a fortune.\u201d
\n\u201cDo you know the banks were fully paid? Do you know the banks made a lot of money?\u201d Trump testified. \u201cDo you know I don\u2019t believe I ever got even a default notice, and even during COVID, the banks were all paid? And yet you\u2019re suing on behalf of banks, I guess. It\u2019s crazy. The whole case is crazy.\u201d
\nTrump is not expected to testify in court if the case goes to trial, but video recordings of his depositions could be played.
\nIn his deposition, Trump testified that once he became president, he stopped paying much attention to his business because he needed to focus on world affairs.
\n\u201cI think you would have nuclear holocaust if I didn\u2019t deal with North Korea,\u201d Trump testified. \u201cI think you would have a nuclear war, if I weren\u2019t elected. And I think you might have a nuclear war now, if you want to know the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEW YORK Donald Trump defended his real estate empire and his presidency in a face-to-face clash with the New York attorney general suing him for fraud, testifying at a closed-door grilling in April that his company is flush with cash \u2014 and claiming he saved \u201cmillions of lives\u201d by deterring nuclear war when he was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352849,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-352969","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n