Donald Trump has always associated his children with his business and his political career: three of them and the Republican billionaire himself are expected on the witness stand in New York from Wednesday in the civil trial over financial fraud that threatens his real estate empire.
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Donald Trump Jr., 45, arrived at the Manhattan courthouse at midday Wednesday to begin his hearing scheduled for the same day, but questioning of previous witnesses on the list has not yet been completed. The parade of the family clan must continue with 39-year-old Eric Trump.
Both are executive vice presidents of the Trump Organization, which brings together a variety of companies that manage high-rise residential and office buildings, luxury hotels and golf courses around the world. Like their father, they are accused by New York Attorney General Letitia James of having inflated the company’s assets into billions of dollars in the 2010s in order to obtain better loans from banks and more favorable insurance conditions.
AFP
“Leave my children alone, Engoron. “You are a disgrace to the judicial profession,” Donald Trump Sr. posted overnight on his social network Truth Social, addressing Judge Arthur Engoron, who is presiding over the trial. He also accused him of being “crazy, completely unbalanced and dangerous” and “doing the Democratic Party’s dirty work,” in a series of vicious messages that he is accustomed to.
Since the trial began on October 2, the judge has already imposed two fines of $5,000 and $10,000 on Donald Trump, which have since been settled, for assaulting his employee.
If the agenda is not disrupted, the 77-year-old former President of the United States will be questioned on Monday, a year less, a day before the presidential election of November 5, 2024 in which he would like to run to return to the top of the United States .
Two days later, Ivanka Trump would follow, leaving the Trump Organization in 2017 to move into the White House as an adviser to the 45th President of the United States, while her two brothers took command of the group.
But the latter, who is not the subject of the proceedings, appealed on Wednesday against the judge’s decision to order her testimony made a few days earlier.
“Repeated scams”
Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump are also ardent political allies of the former American president, an unwavering loyalty that they demonstrate daily in the media and on social networks.
They should not deviate from the line that the defense has taken since the trial began a month ago.
The lawyers argue that the valuations of the group’s assets, such as Trump Tower and the 40 Wall Street building, were subjective but fair and that the banks did not lose a dollar by lending money to the Trump Organization.
But according to Michiel McCarty, head of the investment bank MM Dillon & Co., who spoke as an expert on Wednesday, lending banks like Deutsche Bank could have resorted to higher interest rates if the outlook was less rosy.
He examined four loans to finance projects around a golf course in Florida, two luxury hotels in Washington and Chicago and 40 Wall Street and estimated interest losses between 2014 and 2023 at $168 million. A calculation disputed by the defense.
Regularly present at the hearings, Donald Trump, the favorite in the polls for the Republican primaries, has turned each of his passages in the halls of the court into a mini press conference and, as in the four cases, poses as the victim of a legal machination He faces criminal charges in other cases, particularly for attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
His presence at the hearings also shows the importance Donald Trump attaches to the issue. If he doesn’t risk prison time, the trial could result in him losing control of some of his real estate assets, in addition to a $250 million fine and a ban from running companies in New York.
Even before the trial began on October 2, Judge Engoron estimated that the Attorney General’s Office had presented “conclusive evidence that between 2014 and 2021 the defendants overstated assets by “$812 million (to) $2.2 billion, depending on the year.”
Due to the “repeated fraud” he ordered the companies to be liquidated, a real legal blow, but his decision was stayed on appeal.
The focus of the lawsuit is further violations of financial laws and the amount of the fine.