Trump’s Fraud Trial Ends With Squabbling Over ‘Comical’ Accounting Witness, Trump Denouncing Case as ‘Total Hit Job’

President Trump did not return to the courtroom, where testimony ended in the Trump Organization’s civil fraud trial on Wednesday. Yet the defense lawyers and counsel for the attorney general’s office fiercely battled to the bitter end. “We have risen to a new low even for this case,” defense attorney Christopher Kise told the Sun outside the Manhattan courthouse on Tuesday evening. “It’s comical,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief about the state’s final witness, Cornell University’s director of professional studies in accounting, Eric Lewis. “He has no qualifications whatsoever to render an opinion on a case of this magnitude. None,” Mr. Kise continued. “He’s a cost accounting teacher. His only professional experience in the field of accounting was 30 years ago as a staffer.” President Trump sits between lawyers Christopher Kise and Alina Habba during his civil fraud trial at the state supreme court building at New York, October 4, 2023. Angela Weiss/pool via APAfter the defense rested its case on Tuesday, the New York attorney general, Letitia James, called two rebuttal witnesses. Ms. James is suing Mr. Trump, his two adult sons, former employees, and several of his companies for business fraud. Her lawsuit alleges the Trumps engaged in a decades-long scheme to inflate their property values and Mr. Trump’s personal net worth in order to gain favorable bank loans and insurance policies. At the core of the matter are the Trump Organization’s annual statements of financial condition, or SOFCs. Ms. James claims the asset values on these statements were inflated by a total sum of $3.6 billion. When the state called Mr. Trump to the witness stand early last month, he testified that a statement of financial condition “wasn’t very important.” He added, “You have made it important.” Senior enforcement counsel for the attorney general, Kevin Wallace, asked, “You don’t consider the SOFC an important document?”New York Attorney General Letitia James is suing the Trump Organization for fraud. David Dee Delgado/Getty Images“It’s nice to see,” Mr. Trump replied. Later that day, he added, “maybe someone made a mistake, and that’s why we have a disclaimer, so you don’t get sued by the attorney general every time you make a mistake.”The disclaimer, Mr. Trump said, directed lenders to conduct their own “due diligence.” At one point, Mr. Trump pulled a financial statement out of the inside pocket of his blazer in an attempt to read the disclaimer out loud. “We have a very important clause,” Mr. Trump testified, waiving the folded-up paper in his hand, “which every court in the country holds up except for this judge.” The presiding judge, Arthur Engoron, responded, “if you want to know about the disclaimer clause, read my decision.” Judge Arthur Engoron, seated next to his principal law clerk, Allison Greenfield. Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesJudge Engoron had already ruled in a pre-trial decision that the Trumps were liable for fraud. The non-jury trial will determine the amount of damages they have to pay. Ms. James seeks more than $250 million and also wants to bar them from doing business in New York for five years. In his decision finding the Trumps liable for fraud, the judge wrote, “these non-party disclaimers do not insulate defendants from liability as they plainly state that Donald J. Trump is responsible for the preparation and fair presentation of the financial statement in accordance with the accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America.” The defense’s final witness, a professor of accounting at New York University, Eli Bartov, disagreed. He described the disclaimers “like the warning of the surgeon general on a box of cigarettes,” meaning, “use your own analysis and come up with your own estimate.”Over the course of three days, Mr. Bartov sought to substantiate Mr. Trump’s testimony, assuring the court that SOFCs are insignificant and that every bank conducts its own financial research before it lends out money. President Trump sits next to his attorney, Christopher Kise, during his civil fraud trial at the State Supreme Court building at New York, October 4, 2023. Jeenah Moon/the New York Times via AP, pool, fileThe Enforcement Section Chief for the attorney general, Louis Solomon, challenged Mr. Bartov during cross-examination on Tuesday. He pointed out that Deutsche Bank, one of Mr. Trump’s principal lenders, divided the Trumps’ figures in half. In 2014, when the Trump Organization valued its real estate net equity at $3.8 billion, Deutsche Bank adjusted the amount down to $1.9 billion. The bank applied the same principle year after year. “If I take the number in the statement of financial condition and apply half of that,” Mr. Solomon asked the accounting expert, “is it your testimony that I’m not relying on that number in the first instance?” The prosecutor continued to discredit the witness by reminding him of a previous court case, where his own office, the attorney general’s, had solicited Mr. Bartov’s expert opinion. The case, brought by Ms. James’s predecessor, alleged that Exxon Mobil misled investors on risks posed by climate change. The trial judge in that case, Barry Ostrager, who ruled in favor of Exxon Mobil, wrote in his decision that “the court rejects Dr. Bartov’s expert testimony as unpersuasive,” because it found, “Dr. Bartov’s testimony to be flatly contradicted by the weight of the evidence.” President Trump leaves the courtroom during a lunch break in his civil business fraud trial, October 4, 2023, at New York. AP/Mary AltafferMr. Kise objected, deeming the Exxon case irrelevant, even though it had been his team who first mentioned the case when it listed the professor’s prolific credentials. Mr. Trump’s son, Eric, made an appearance on Tuesday morning, sitting in the pews, his head lowered. He left after the lunch break. His father did not return to the courtroom. Mr. Trump attended Thursday’s as well as numerous other hearings of the two-and-a-half month long trial, even when he was not required to. Of all the court cases the 45th president is currently fighting, this one may be the most personal. His century-old family real estate brand is at stake. After Mr. Bartov was excused, the state called its first rebuttal witness, former Trump International Realty employee, Kevin Sneddon. His testimony addressed the square footage of Mr. Trump’s penthouse apartment in his iconic Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue at Manhattan. In 2017, Forbes magazine divulged that the three-story apartment was not 30,000 square feet, as Mr. Trump had long claimed, but measured only 11,000, making it less valuable.Judge Arthur Engoron at his courtroom at New York, September 28, 2023. AP/Seth WenigThe defense blamed Mr. Sneddon for this mistake. “The person running Trump International Realty at the time, Kevin Sneddon, sent me an email that the triplex was 30,000 square feet,” a former Trump Organization controller, Jeffrey McConney, testified earlier in the trial. On Tuesday, the real estate broker explained he had never actually seen the triplex when co-defendant and former Trump Organization’s chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, asked him to value the penthouse. Mr. Sneddon told the court he didn’t “know much about the apartment itself.” He elaborated, “I asked if I could see it,” but Weisselberg answered that it was “not possible.” “I asked if there was a floor plan or any specs. He said he did not have any of that information,” Mr. Sneddon added. “He said, ‘It’s quite large. I think it’s around 30,000 square feet.” President Trump, alongside his attorney, Alina Habba, at the New York Supreme Court at New York, New York, on November 6, 2023. Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesProsecutors provided an e-mail exchange between Mr. Sneddon and Mr. McConney from September 2012, which proved that Mr. Sneddon had relied on Weisselberg’s estimate when he passed the inaccurate figure to Mr. McConney. “I already valued DJT’s triplex for Allen,” Sneddon’s e-mail read. “At 30,000 sq. ft., DJT’s triplex is worth between 4K and 6K per ft. – or 120MM to 180MM.” Mr. Kise jumped up from the defense table, objecting that the testimony was an inappropriate rebuttal, arguing that the witness should have been questioned during the state’s six week presentation. Judge Engoron overruled the objection. When the state called its final and second rebuttal witness, Cornell University’s accounting professor, Mr. Lewis, the defense strongly objected to qualifying him as an expert. Eric Trump, seen during his first court appearance at the Trump Organization’s fraud trial in Manhattan. He was back in the courtroom to watch the end of the trial. David Dee Delgado/Getty ImagesMr. Kise confronted the witness, saying, “You are a professor of practice with no practice in the field of accounting.” He turned to the judge, telling him, the last time the professor worked as an accountant “in the real world” was 30 years ago. “I probably have more experience than this witness.” “The idea that he’s not qualified is laughable,” state attorney Kevin Wallace intervened. Judge Engoron granted the qualification. In an unexpected turn of events, the state tripped during direct examination on Wednesday. The accounting professor tried to explain to the many non-accounting experts in the courtroom that some of the over-valuations stemmed from the Trumps’ failure to disclose the “cash flow analysis” in their statements of financial conditions.Mr. Trump had also told the court during his testimony, “I had a lot of cash,” that his loans were “based on my cash,” and that the banks “wanted cash,” indicating that perhaps missing cash calculations affected the figures on the statements. Donald Trump Jr. at court during the Trump Organization’s fraud trial on November 1, 2023 at New York City. David Dee Delgado/Getty Images“There is no mention of discounting or future value in the disclosure,” Mr. Lewis said, contrasting the testimony by defense expert Jason Flemmons to that of the state witness and former Mazars accountant, Donald Bender. “Are you impeaching your own witness?” Judge Engoron asked the questioning state attorneys. “We didn’t feel the need to,” Mr. Wallace replied. In his cross-examination, defense attorney Jesus Suarez continued to ridicule the professor, who had just helped his case, asking him if he was aware that “students describe you as the worst professor?” He added that student reviewers say, “it’s a good class if you wanna chill and not learn much?”Ivanka Trump leaves New York State Supreme Court after testifying at her father’s civil fraud trial. Spencer Platt/Getty Images.The professor endured the personal insults and answered diligently, providing so many accounting details that even Mr. Suarez seemed not to understand. The witness was excused shortly after noon, after which the state, too, rested its case. Mr. Kise reminded the judge that he was going to submit a written argument for a directed verdict, asking Judge Engoron, for a fifth time, to end the case due to the lack of evidence of fraud. The judge told Mr. Kise that “there’s no way I’m going to grant that” but mentioned he would probably “read” the motion. Mr. Kise also made clear, as he had on numerous other occasions, that the defense will appeal the final decision. “You’re going to appeal?” Judge Engoron joked with the attorney, stating the obvious. “In a strange way, I am going to miss this trial,” the judge said on Wednesday. “It has been an experience.” He wished everyone a happy holiday.President Trump sits in the courtroom before the continuation of his civil business fraud trial at New York supreme court, October 3, 2023. AP/Seth Wenig, poolDespite the heated arguments, Mr. Kise shared the brief absence of antagonism, thanking the court staff and the court reporters for their work. As he left the courtroom, he passed the attorney general, Ms. James, who was sitting in the pews. He stopped. The two shook hands and smiled. “See you next year,” they both said. Defense attorney Alina Habba was less amicable. “I feel exactly like I did before,” she told reporters. “This case was a joke. We wasted three months.” Mr. Trump echoed her combative sentiment. In a post on social media he dismissed the possibility of a settlement and lashed out at the judge. “HE RULED THAT I WAS A FRAUD BEFORE HE EVEN SAW THE CASE, THEN TRIED TO GET ME TO SETTLE. A TOTAL HIT JOB.” A settlement may be be less costly for Mr. Trump than an appeal. ABC News reported that he has spent $2.5 million dollars on expert testimony and around $7 million on attorney fees in “just the first half of this year.” Mr. Trump is using personal and campaign funds to pay for these and his other rising legal fees.Judge Engoron has not made any statements about possible settlements in court. In a statement, the attorney general said that the trial had “revealed the full extent” of the defendants’ fraud “and inability to disprove it. We look forward to presenting our closing argument on January 11.” The judge plans to publish his written decision a few weeks later.

Trump’s Fraud Trial Ends With Squabbling Over ‘Comical’ Accounting Witness, Trump Denouncing Case as ‘Total Hit Job’

Trump’s Fraud Trial Ends With Squabbling Over ‘Comical’ Accounting Witness, Trump Denouncing Case as ‘Total Hit Job’

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