Trump’s sons distance themselves from financial statements in New York fraud trial testimony
In back-to-back testimonies Thursday, former President Trump’s two adult sons distanced themselves from Trump Organization financial statements key to the New York attorney general’s case against their family business.
Both Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump denied any involvement in their father’s financial statements, suggesting instead they relied on accountants and other experts to make sure the numbers were correct.
The Trump Organization’s statements of financial condition — which detail the value of its various assets and were sent to banks and insurers to secure loans and deals — are at the heart of the attorney general’s lawsuit, which claims the Trump Organization falsely inflated and deflated the value of its assets to receive lower taxes and better insurance coverage.
Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., testified Wednesday that he signed off on his father’s financial statements as an executive vice president of the Trump Organization and trustee of the trust that held Trump’s assets while he was president. However, he said he counted on the work of accountants and executives like then-Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg to be correct.
“As a trustee, I have an obligation to listen [to] those who are expert — who have an expertise of these things,” Donald Trump Jr. said, The Associated Press reported.
Eric Trump, the former president’s second son, also denied involvement, testifying that he “never had anything to do with the statement of financial condition.”
But state lawyer Andrew Amer later pointed to a 2013 email Eric Trump received from another company executive asking for information needed to fill out Trump’s financial statement, according to The Associated Press.
“So you did know about your father’s annual financial statement as of August 2013?” Amer asked.
“It appears that way,” Eric Trump said.
Trump’s legal team has so far attempted to shift the blame for the statements’ skewed numbers from the former president and his family onto the accountants who calculated them. Ex-Trump accountant Donald Bender testified under cross-examination for nearly a full week at the start of the trial, where Trump’s lawyers sought to portray him as negligent.
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Trump’s sons distance themselves from financial statements in New York fraud trial testimony https://t.co/ONvhPDMgm4 pic.twitter.com/5pCssjBx19
— The Hill (@thehill) November 2, 2023
Trump is lying to you in this post.
1. His legal team elected to have a bench trial.
2. The judge ruled as was expected. The trial now is to decide the penalty he faces not if he is guilty or not. That has already been decided.
3. The judge did not say MAL was worth $18m. He… pic.twitter.com/WXCYGVaAhj
— Brian Jacobson (@BrianHJacobson) November 2, 2023
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