Trump committed fraud, US judge rules
Former president and his firm found to have inflated wealth by up to $3.6billion to obtain cheap loans
DONALD TRUMP committed fraud by over-inflating his wealth by as much as $3.6billion (£3billion), a New York judge has ruled.
Judge Arthur Engoron found that the ex-president and his company deceived banks and insurers by overvaluing his assets and exaggerating his net worth.
Ruling in a civil lawsuit brought by Letitia James, the New York attorney general, Mr Engoron said Mr Trump’s estimates were based on the “fantasy world, not the real world”.
Mr Engoron ordered that some of Mr Trump’s business licences be rescinded, making it difficult for him to do business in the city.
Mr Trump has long insisted he did nothing wrong and claimed the lawsuit is a politically motivated “crusade” by the Democrat judge.
The ruling finds that Mr Trump, his company and key executives repeatedly lied about his assets on his annual financial statements, to cash in on favourable loan terms and lower insurance premiums.
Such tactics violated the law, the judge said, rejecting Mr Trump’s contention that a disclaimer on the financial statements absolved him of any wrongdoing.
“In [the] defendants’ world: rent regulated apartments are worth the same as unregulated apartments; restricted land is worth the same as unrestricted land; restrictions can evaporate into thin air; a disclaimer by one party casting responsibility on another party exonerates the other party’s lies,” Mr Engoron wrote in his 35-page ruling.
“That is a fantasy world, not the real world.”
Manhattan prosecutors had considered bringing a criminal case over the same conduct but declined to do so, leaving Ms James to sue Mr Trump and seek penalties that could disrupt his and his family’s ability to do business in the state.
The claim, filed last year in the State Supreme Court in Manhattan, seeks a $250million judgment and a ban on Mr Trump doing business in New York.
The ruling is a big step for Ms James, who last month claimed the lawsuit did not need to go to trial because there is a “mountain” of evidence.
Mr Engoron’s ruling, in a phase of the case known as summary judgment, resolves the key claim in Ms James’ lawsuit, but six others remain.
A non-jury trial is due to start on Oct 2 before deciding on those claims and any punishments he may impose. The trial could last into December.
Mr Trump’s lawyers had asked the judge to throw out the case.
They contend that Ms James wasn’t legally allowed to file the lawsuit because there isn’t any evidence that the public was harmed by Mr Trump’s actions. They also argued that many of the allegations in the lawsuit were barred by the statute of limitations.
Mr Engoron said he had “emphatically rejected” those arguments earlier in the case, equating them to the “timeloop in the film Groundhog Day”.
Ms James, a Democrat, sued Mr Trump and the Trump Organisation a year ago, alleging a pattern of duplicity that she dubbed “the art of the steal”, a twist on the title of Trump’s 1987 business memoir The Art of the Deal.
Among the allegations were that Mr Trump claimed his Trump Tower apartment in Manhattan, a three-storey penthouse with gold-plated fixtures, was nearly three times its actual size and was valued at $327million. No apartment in New York City has ever sold for close to that amount, Ms James said.
Mr Trump valued his Florida home Mar-a-lago as high as $739million — more than 10 times a more reasonable estimate. Mr Trump’s figure for the private club and residence was based on the idea that the property could be developed for residential use, but deed terms prohibit that, Ms James said.
Mr Trump has denied wrongdoing, arguing in sworn testimony that it didn’t matter what he put on his financial statements because they carry a disclaimer that he shouldn’t be trusted.
Mr Engoron ruled the defences Mr Trump sought to use were “wholly without basis in fact or law”.
Mr Trump responded to the judge’s ruling with a post on his social network Truth Social, saying he had been “unfairly sued by the Trump-hating Democrat Attorney General of New York State, Letitia James, over the false claim that I inflated my financial statements to borrow money from banks”.
He added: “The facts of the case are quite simple. I am worth much more than the number shown on my financial statements. I didn’t even include my most valuable asset – my brand”.
Hunter Biden is suing Rudy Giuliani and his former lawyer for allegedly “hacking” his laptop and sharing his data with the media.
The US president’s son filed a lawsuit against Mr Giuliani and Robert Costello, both allies of Donald Trump, over claims that they accessed his laptop’s data unlawfully.
Mr Biden, 53, claimed the two had been sent a copy of his hard drive by the owner of a computer shop where he is said to have left his laptop for repairs.
‘In the defendants’ world, restrictions can evaporate into thin air. That is a fantasy world, not the real world’
‘I am worth much more than the number shown on my financial statements. I didn’t even include my most valuable asset – my brand’