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“Former President Donald Trump padded his net worth by billions of dollars and habitually misled banks and others about the value of prized assets like golf courses, hotels and his Mar-a-Lago estate, New York’s attorney general said Wednesday in a lawsuit that seeks to permanently disrupt the Republican’s ability to do business in the state…
“The lawsuit, filed in state court in Manhattan, is the culmination of the Democrat’s three-year civil investigation into Trump and the Trump Organization. Trump’s three eldest children, Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric Trump, were also named as defendants, along with two longtime company executives.” AP News
The right is skeptical of the lawsuit, arguing that it is politically motivated.
“James’s bells-and-whistles press conference notwithstanding, what made the case unattractive to criminal prosecutors is blatant. For all the state AG’s hype about a ‘staggering’ number of allegedly false representations by Trump (over 200, she says, between 2011 and 2021), the case lacks what truly massive fraud cases are best known for: a victim — indeed, at these numbers, you’d expect an array of victims…
“This is no Bernie Madoff case. No one was financially ruined (or even appreciably damaged) due to Trump’s machinations. Trump dealt with a wide run of highly sophisticated financial actors — banks, real-estate corporations, insurance conglomerates, accounting firms, etc. They knew exactly who he was, what his reputation has been for a half-century, and how his accountants tended to avoid vouching for his number-crunching.”
Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review
“Yes, Trump, who is in the habit of bragging in his financial statements as he does in everyday life, did value his properties all over the place. On the other hand, if Trump defrauded lenders, it was for loans that were paid back and on which the lenders made money. And as far as the IRS is concerned, it's fair to say Trump has been under a lot of scrutiny over the years and remains uncharged. It's difficult to say whether James's findings justify the effort her office put into it…
“Former Attorney General William Barr, who has been highly critical of his former boss recently, immediately declared James's lawsuit a ‘political hit job.’ Barr particularly noted that James, who of course has the authority to charge Trump with crimes, instead filed a civil suit. ‘To me, that says she does not have the evidence to make a criminal case,’ Barr told Fox News. ‘So she's setting a lower bar and bringing this civil case. I don't think it's going to go any further.’”
Byron York, Washington Examiner
“Ms. James ran for office promising to indict Mr. Trump, which is the opposite of the way justice should be done. You’re supposed to find a crime and then identify the perpetrator. Ms. James declared Mr. Trump could ‘be indicted for criminal offenses’ and has hunted ever since for a crime to charge him with…
“Ms. James’s decision to drop this lawsuit only a few weeks before the midterm election also smacks of political motivation. Mr. Trump isn’t on any ballot. But she knows Mr. Trump drives Democrats to vote, and keeping him at the center of the news is a Democratic priority. Mr. Trump has made a business and political career of getting away with whatever he can, and it’s easy to imagine he crossed a line. But the Democrats pursuing him have become Captain Ahabs bent on taking him down by any means necessary.”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal
The left is cautiously optimistic about the lawsuit, arguing that there is evidence Trump committed fraud.
The left is cautiously optimistic about the lawsuit, arguing that there is evidence Trump committed fraud.
“To be sure, it isn’t a crime to stand on Fifth Avenue and declare that you are a billionaire… Where Trump and his businesses crossed the legal line, the complaint alleges, was in producing false financial statements…
“In 2013, for example, it valued its leasehold at 40 Wall Street, an office and retail-space building, at $530 million, despite a bank-ordered appraisal the prior year that valued it at $220 million. More recently, in 2020, it valued Trump Park Avenue, a condominium, at $135.8 million, despite an appraisal, earlier the same year, of $84.5 million… Trump’s alleged deceptions reaped him and his co-defendants financial benefits worth up to an estimated $250 million.”
John Cassidy, New Yorker
“Trump is accused of inflating the floor plan [of his apartment] by three times. The apartment is about 11,000 square feet; Trump allegedly claimed it was 30,000, in order to value it at $327m. At Trump Park Avenue, a high-rise apartment building he owns a few blocks away, 12 units were set aside by law as rent-stabilized; the rates couldn’t be raised, and the tenants could not be evicted. But Trump allegedly valued the property as if he were collecting market rate rents on those apartments, a fiction that increased the value of the building by almost 70 times…
“Deception seems to have been core to the Trump Organization’s business model. James alleges that the practice went on for years, citing 11 of the Trump Organization’s annual financial reports, on which Trump personally signed off, which her office says contain more than 200 fraudulent asset valuations. Just as Trump allegedly inflated the value of his assets when he was seeking a loan, there’s some evidence to suggest that he deflated the value of those same assets when it came time to pay his taxes.”
Moira Donegan, The Guardian
“Cheating on one’s taxes is not a crime generally viewed with sympathy by the public, but on that front, one individual in the commercial real estate business that Slate contacted noted that striving for lowball appraisals for tax purposes—while painting a pretty picture for lenders and investors—is something that ‘everyone’ does…
“The best guess of legal experts about whether her office can obtain a verdict against him at trial seems to be ‘maybe, but maybe not!’ While the examples of inflated valuations might be embarrassing to Trump personally, the main ‘victim’ as outlined in the suit is Deutsche Bank, whose personal-wealth division is portrayed as eager to win Trump’s business but not so eager to verify or double check any of the financial claims made on his behalf by his representatives. Nor, it would appear from the suit, did Trump ever default on the terms he arranged with the bank.”
Ben Mathis-Lilley, Slate
