Thursday, April 13th:
*Deposition Hearing (@ am ET) - New York - Donald J. Trump, Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump, Jr. & Eric Trump & the Trump Organization is being sued by Letitia James, the New York attorney general & is leading a civil investigation (which cannot result in criminal charges) & has spent years looking at whether the company committed various acts of fraud over several decades. In the civil case, Ms. James has filed a lawsuit against Trump & three of his children accusing them of "astounding" fraud & deception. The lawsuit alleges that the family inflated their net worth by billions & is seeking $250m that was allegedly obtained through fraudulent means. It's also seeking bans on Trump & his children from serving in a leadership role in any New York business.
Trial set to begin 10/2/23.
The suit claims that Trump's Florida estate & golf resort, Mar-a-Lago, was valued as high as $739 million, but should have been valued at $75 million. Trump is also alleged to have overvalued assets such as his Trump Tower apartment; Trump Turnberry, his golf course in Scotland; and 40 Wall Street. Included in the 2011 valuation of Trump’s Westchester golf course in New York was the notion that new members would pay $200,000 in initiation fees, even though Trump instructed the club to reduce or waive those fees in a bid to increase club membership numbers, according to the lawsuit. The defendants are accused of skewing the worth of the Trump Park Avenue property, by putting a value on several units that was roughly six times more than what an outside firm calculated in an 2010 appraisal. James pointed to testimony from Donald Trump Jr., one of the defendants, that indicated the company was aware that the units were rent stabilized, which is the reason the appraiser had put them at the much lower value. Other Trump ventures – including his Doral golf resort in Florida, the Old Post Office property he leased for a hotel in Washington & Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago – are implicated in the lawsuit, with James saying that loans were extended for those properties because of inaccurate representations the Trump team made to banks. James also claimed that the Trump financial statements describes profits from real estate properties as being part of Trump’s liquid assets when they were in fact cash held by a real estate trust, Vornado Partnerships, in which Trump had a minority stake. Doing so contradicted both US accounting principles (known as generally accepted accounting principles or GAAP), according to the complaint. “All told, Mr. Trump, the Trump Organization & the other Defendants, as part of a repeated pattern & common scheme, derived more than 200 false & misleading valuations of assets included in the 11 Statements covering 2011 through 2021,” the lawsuit said.
The 220-page lawsuit arose from a three-year investigation & seeks multiple, corporation-crippling demands that will be decided by a Manhattan judge in October. James wants the company to pay back the $250 million Trump allegedly pocketed through misleading banks. She also seeks to ban Trump & his three eldest children — Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, & Eric Trump, who have all served as Trump Organization executives — from ever running a company in New York state again. New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron has warned Trump's side that the trial will start on time — on Monday, October 2, 2023 — "come hell or high water.
4/7/23 Update: Donald Trump’s new accounting firm struck a deal with the New York attorney general to hand over documents subpoenaed in the state. Whitley Penn LLP, the Texas-based firm Trump hired after he parted ways with longtime accountant Mazars USA LLP, reached the agreement with Trump & New York Attorney General Letitia James last week, according to an April 7 order signed by New York state court Justice Arthur Engoron.
4/11/23 Update: Former President Donald Trump is scheduled to return to New York City Thursday, 4/13/23 to sit for a second deposition as part of New York Attorney General Letitia James' $250 million civil fraud lawsuit. Trump did not answer many questions in the first deposition other than affirming he understood the ground rules and the procedures. When asked questions about his finances, Trump repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment and continued to do so for the next several hours.