REUTERS/Scott Morgan
Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers and New York state investigators duked it out in court Friday morning, as both sides sought to score a decisive victory to avoid a trial that threatens to topple his real estate empire and drain his bank accounts.
“There was rampant fraud in preparation of Trump’s personal financial statements,” said Andrew Amer, a lawyer at the New York Attorney General’s Office. “The defendants used those fraudulent statements repeatedly and persistently with banks and insurance companies in transactions seeking financial benefits.”
Amer argued that Trump has “ultimate responsibility” over the way he faked personal financial statements to inflate the value of his properties to augment his net worth by $2.2 billion or more. The former president’s own records for the backbone of the $250 million lawsuit the AG’s office last year against Trump, his top lieutenants, and the heirs he appointed as Trump Organization executives.