Bing Guan/Reuters
With the former president sitting in the courtroom, Donald Trump’s lawyers moved into their next phase of attack at his bank fraud trial on Tuesday, arguing that his vastly inflated property values were never official appraisals—and weren’t ever meant to be.
The defense that Trump’s blathering real estate assessments were obviously not to be taken literally was on display Tuesday as his lawyers cross-examined a witness for New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is trying to topple the tycoon’s real estate empire and siphon $250 million or more from his bank accounts.
The tactic centers on the idea that prices are totally relative, and Trump’s guess is as good as any. This doesn’t explain how Trump could blatantly lie about space—like tripling the size of his New York City penthouse on paper. But it is an attempt to undermine the AG’s argument that Trump’s inflated sums weren’t honest or fair.