Donald Trump, this Monday at a campaign rally in Summerville (South Carolina). SAM WOLFE (Portal)
A New York judge on Tuesday refused to dismiss the state’s Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit accusing Donald Trump of illegally inflating his assets and net worth to obtain advantageous loans and economic benefits, ruling that Trump and the family business that numerous Trump organizations are responsible for fraud.
The decision on this civil case, which James has been investigating since last September, was made by Judge Arthur Engoron of New York State Court in Manhattan. Trump’s lawyers had tried to derail the case with repeated requests for postponement, but Judge Engoron’s decision is consistent with prosecutors, who last week requested a partial trial on the main fraud charge against Trump and his sons Donald Jr. and Eric, the Trump Organization and various associates, leaving six additional crimes involved in the case scheduled for trial on October 2nd. As punishment, Engoron is also ordering the termination of some of Trump’s business licenses, which would make it difficult or impossible for the company to do business in New York, and the retention of an independent monitor to monitor the Trump Organization’s operations.
A year ago, the same judge ordered the former president’s eldest children, Donald Jr. and Ivanka Trump, to appear as witnesses in another investigation into their father.
It is not the first setback for the Republican favorite candidate for the 2024 primaries, who this Monday was 40 points ahead of his immediate rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. The Trump Organization was found guilty last December and fined $1.6 million a month later.
James sued Trump, accusing him and the family business of lying for a decade about the true value of his assets and net worth in order to obtain better terms on bank loans and insurance coverage. James claims that Trump increased his net worth by as much as $2.23 billion to $3.6 billion in annual statements to banks and insurance companies during that period. Trump believes Democrat James is persecuting him for political reasons and never tires of denouncing what he calls a “witch hunt” for flimsy reasons that have nothing to do with complying with or violating the law.
The attorney general alleges that among the assets whose values have been inflated is the Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, which is the basis for one of the four charges against the Republican, namely that of the secret documents obtained after he left the White House; his fabulous penthouse in the so-called Trump Tower in Manhattan, on the city’s Golden Mile, as well as several office buildings and golf courses.
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In his ruling, Engoron said that James had taken responsibility for the false valuations of several properties, including Mar-a-Lago and the Manhattan penthouse, and rebuked Trump for making statements in his testimony that were “completely without legal or factual basis”. “It is alleged that if property values have increased in the years since the financial statements were filed, the figures at the time were not inflated,” writes Engoron.
“He also seems to suggest that the numbers cannot be inflated because he could find a ‘Saudi buyer’ who would pay whatever price he proposed.” It was in this context that news of Trump’s agreement with Saudi Arabia broke a new golf course with a multi-million dollar contract that had been the subject of criticism came to light on the eve of the investigation by James’ office. The trial for this civil case is scheduled for October 2nd and could last well into December, coinciding with the start of the trial in the Stormy Daniels case, also in New York. The latter is the first of four major legal challenges facing the Republican candidate for re-election in 2024, with the campaign already underway but not noticeably affecting his ambitions to return to the White House.
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