Donald Trump and his companies inflated the value of their assets by $2.2 billion, according to a new court filing from New York’s attorney general, urging a judge to find the former president guilty ahead of a trial scheduled to begin in October. responsible for fraud.
The “indisputable” evidence of value inflation from 2011 to 2021 is so strong that the state should get “summary judgment” in a 2022 lawsuit accusing Trump and the Trump Organization of “continuing and Repeatedly” fraud, New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a Manhattan state court filing on Wednesday.
The trial will still continue from Oct. 2 if a judge finds Trump responsible, with other charges in the state including falsifying business records and publishing false financial statements.
The trial is unrelated to the four criminal indictments Trump faces. While there is no risk of jail time in a civil case, Trump’s loss in the fraud lawsuit could result in a $250 million payment to the state and ban Trump from serving as a director of any New York corporation. His adult sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, are also defendants.
Trump, the Republican front-runner seeking to return to the White House in 2024, has denied wrongdoing and argued that all the lawsuits and prosecutions he faces are part of a coordinated “witch hunt” by Democrats to undermine him. election campaign.
Trump’s lawyer handling the case did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
According to James’ filing, all she needed to win summary judgment on the fraud charges against her was to show that Trump’s financial statements were false and misleading for a decade and that he “repeatedly or consistently “Use these declarations.
“The answer to both questions is a resounding ‘yes,’ based on an overwhelming body of indisputable evidence,” James said in the filing.
When James was asked about his role in the company, he tried to back up her claim with testimony Trump gave in April in his testimony in the case. The former president testified that his involvement has dwindled since his first presidential campaign in 2015, and his “role has disappeared.”
“I’m actually not involved at all,” Trump said, according to a transcript attached to James’ filing. not interested.”
Trump agreed that as president he was ultimately too busy to care about the company that bears his name and that running the country was his top priority, including negotiations with North Korea.
“I think it’s the most important job in the world, saving millions of lives,” Trump said. “I think if I didn’t deal with North Korea, there would be a nuclear holocaust. Nuclear war would break out. If you want to know the truth, I think nuclear war could happen right now.”
