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      New York judge suspends Trump gag order in fraud trial, citing free speech

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      A New York appeals court judge on Thursday paused a gag order that barred Donald Trump from commenting on court staffers in his civil fraud trial. The trial judge had imposed the gag order last month and later fined Trump $15,000 for violations after the former president made a disparaging social media post about a court clerk.In his decision, Judge David Friedman of the state’s intermediate appeals court cited constitutional concerns about restricting Trump’s free speech. He issued a stay of the gag order, allowing Trump to comment freely about court staff while a longer appeals process plays out.Trump’s lawyers filed a lawsuit against the trial judge, Arthur Engoron, late on Wednesday challenging the gag order as an abuse of power. Friedman scheduled an emergency hearing for Thursday afternoon around a conference table in a state appellate courthouse a couple of miles from where the trial is unfolding.Trump’s lawyers had asked the appeals judge to scrap the gag order and fines imposed by the trial judge, after the former president and his attorneys claimed that a law clerk was wielding improper influence.Trump and his lawyers have repeatedly put the law clerk, Allison Greenfield, under a microscope during the trial. They contend that the former Democratic judicial candidate is a partisan voice in Judge Engoron’s ear – though he also is a Democrat – and that she is playing too big a role in the case involving the former Republican president.Engoron has responded by defending Greenfield’s role in the courtroom, ordering participants in the trial not to comment on court staffers and fining Trump a total of $15,000 for what the judge deemed violations. Engoron went on last week to prohibit attorneys in the case from commenting on “confidential communications” between him and his staff.Trump’s lawyers – who, separately, sought a mistrial on Wednesday – contend that Engoron’s orders are unconstitutionally suppressing free speech, and not just any free speech.“This constitutional protection is at its apogee where the speech in question is core political speech, made by the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, regarding perceived partisanship and bias at a trial where he is subject to hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties and the threatened prohibition of his lawful business activities in the state,” they wrote in a legal filing. More

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      Credit agency Moody’s cuts outlook on US government to negative

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      The credit ratings agency Moody’s reduced its outlook on the US government from stable to negative, citing division in Washington DC and risks to the nation’s fiscal strength.While Moody’s maintained the US’s current top-grade AAA rating, it raised the prospect that this may be cut.Moody’s warned that the US’s deficits are likely to remain “very large” in the face of higher interest rates. It also cautioned that “continued political polarization” in Congress rasies the risk that governments “will not be able to reach consensus on a fiscal plan to slow the decline in debt affordability”.The federal government is on the brink of another shutdown, with just a week left for the Republican-led House, Democratic-led Senate and Biden White House to reach a breakthrough on funding.The Biden administration said it disagreed with the decision, which comes just three months after another major agency, Fitch, downgraded its top rating for the US. Standard & Poor’s, the other leading ratings agency, had already done so.“In the context of higher interest rates, without effective fiscal policy measures to reduce government spending or increase revenues, Moody’s expects that the US’s fiscal deficits will remain very large, significantly weakening debt affordability,” the agency said in a statement.Wally Adeyemo, the US deputy treasury secretary, said: “While the statement by Moody’s maintains the United States’ AAA rating, we disagree with the shift to a negative outlook. The American economy remains strong, and treasury securities are the world’s pre-eminent safe and liquid asset.”Karine Jean-Pierre, White House press secretary, suggested the move was “yet another consequence of congressional Republican extremism and dysfunction”. More

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      Swan on a lake: Ivanka Trump’s poise at trial differs from family but playbook is the same

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      When Ivanka Trump took the stand at her father’s New York fraud trial on Wednesday, it appeared she was following the advice she gave to readers in her 2009 book The Trump Card: Playing to Win in Work and Life. “Perception is more important than reality,” Trump wrote. “It is more important than if it is in fact true.”In stark contrast to her father’s often angry performance on the stand just two days earlier, Ivanka Trump was calm and amiable. Her brothers, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, also visibly lost patience on the stand, speaking quickly and sternly when answering some questions and making sarcastic comments at others. The eldest Trump daughter maintained her poise throughout. She delivered her testimony like a swan gliding across a lake. But beneath the surface, she was furiously paddling.Despite the control shown during her testimony, Ivanka Trump was ultimately utilizing the same Trump playbook her family has used throughout this trial: deny any memory of working with the financial statements at the center of the case and emphasize the time that has passed since the deals were made.“I generally understand that there was a personal guarantee condition of the loan,” Ivanka Trump said when asked about whether she knew the financial statements at the center of the case were used to guarantee a loan used to purchase the Old Post Office building in Washington DC. “And a series of requirements that were fulfilled by the team in accordance to the terms.”Her siblings and father had given similar answers, though phrased differently.“I rely on the accounting office,” Eric Trump said about the statements. “I relied on a great legal department.”Trump himself kept on referring to his “highly paid accounting firm” that handled the statements.Like her siblings, Ivanka Trump often said she did not recall multiple emails and statements that were used as evidence, many of which attested strongly to the attorney general’s case.When obtaining financing for the Trump Doral golf course in Miami, Ivanka Trump had responded to a loan agreement with Deutsche Bank with: “It doesn’t get better than this let’s discuss asap.” Four minutes later, a lawyer for the Trump Organization responded with concerns over the agreements, specifically a covenant that Trump must maintain a net worth of $3bn, which “would be a problem”. Ivanka Trump then suggested that they negotiate the covenant to $2bn.“I don’t recall,” Ivanka Trump answered when prosecutor Louis Solomon asked her about the exchange.General Services Agency, an agency in the federal government, had documented concerns with Trump’s statement of financial conditions for not following accounting principles when the Trump Organization was trying to purchase the Old Post Office Building in Washington DC. Documentation showed Ivanka Trump attended a meeting where the purchase, including the “deficiencies” the agency saw in the Trump Organization’s proposal, would be discussed.Again, memories of these meetings had been lost to her.“We spent many years working on the response to the request for a proposal, many, many emails, many conversations. I don’t have a recollection sitting here over a decade later,” Ivanka Trump said.What she never lost were her manners. Sitting in the same seat where her red-faced father called the case a “witch-hunt”, Ivanka Trump thanked the court officers as they handed her documented evidence. She answered slowly, quietly. “I’m sorry,” Trump said when the judge asked her to sit closer to the microphone. “It’s OK,” the judge responded.Trump appeared wistful when prosecutors first brought up the 2012 Trump Organization deal to purchase the Doral golf course in Miami.“I was in the ninth month of pregnancy,” Trump recalled with a smile, saying that it was 12 years ago when her daughter was born.The moment provided an insight into how Ivanka Trump is positioning herself in her post-White House days. The high-powered daughter of a real estate tycoon who became a dutiful adviser to the president, she has distanced herself from her father recently.When she announced she would not be a part of her father’s 2024 presidential campaign, she said: ​​“I love my father very much. This time around, I am choosing to prioritize my young children and the private life we are creating as a family. I do not plan to be involved in politics.”Once a mainstay of New York’s elite socialite scene, which leans Democratic, Ivanka Trump has been shunned by her peers in recent years for her involvement in her father’s political career. But the tides could be changing. Last month, Kim Kardashian posted a picture of herself with Ivanka Trump at her birthday party in Beverly Hills, the first time in years an A-list celebrity had acknowledged friendship with Trump.But as much as her father’s political brand has been a hit to her personal brand, Ivanka Trump appeared very much to be her father’s daughter on the witness stand, especially as the day went on. In cross-examination, when Trump’s team was trying to emphasize that Deutsche Bank actively sought out a relationship with the Trump family, Ivanka Trump proudly talked about her family’s properties, using words like “iconic” and “beautiful” – all words straight out of her father’s lexicon.“It was a historically significant building, a beautiful building,” Ivanka Trump said of the Old Post Office building. The former president himself, two days earlier, similarly called his properties “beautiful”.“Witch-hunt”, “political hack”, “election interference”, “a disgrace” – she left those phrases to her father.Unlike the members of her family, who gave lengthy statements to the press once they left the courtroom, Ivanka Trump quietly left the courthouse at the end of the day, looking past the crowd of reporters who shouted her name.Ivanka Trump is the last witness for the attorney general’s office. The trial continues with the defense’s witnesses. More

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      ‘I don’t recall’: Ivanka Trump testifies in father’s New York fraud trial

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      “I don’t recall,” Ivanka Trump repeatedly told a New York court on Wednesday as she took the witness stand at her father’s $250m fraud trial and was quizzed about deals prosecutors claim prove the Trump Organization knowingly misled lenders.Trump’s eldest daughter gave an orderly, calm performance after the often chaotic testimony of her father and brothers. She pointed out that she had not worked for the family firm since 2017 and said she did not recall many specific conversations but added: “I have no reason to doubt it.”But like her father and brothers, she consistently said she did not recall details about specific transactions or conversations. “There were many emails, many conversations,” she said.The trial is just one of a series that the Republican presidential frontrunner faces. Trump has been charged with 91 felony counts across criminal cases in New York, Florida, Washington and Georgia.New York’s attorney general is trying to prove that the Trump family and other executives knowingly inflated Trump’s wealth in order to secure favorable loans.In one exchange Ivanka Trump was shown a series of emails and other documents relating to a loan from Deutsche Bank’s private wealth management division. The loan was contingent on Trump maintaining a value in excess of $3bn. Ivanka Trump negotiated to get the net worth covenant reduced to $2.5bn after a Trump lawyer expressed some concerns.“It doesn’t get better than this,” Ivanka Trump said of the terms in 2011. “Let’s discuss asap.” That year Donald Trump would go on to claim he was worth $4.2bn. The prosecution alleges that Trump was not worth $2bn at the time.“I don’t recall,” she said, when asked about multiple documents and emails that showed she played a key role in deals to obtain financing for the Trump Organization.Asked about whether she understood that the financial statements at the center of the case were used to guarantee a loan to purchase the Old Post Office building in Washington DC, which became the now defunct Trump International hotel, Trump said: “I generally understand that there was a personal guarantee condition of the loan and a series of requirements that were fulfilled by the team in accordance to the terms.”Trump’s lawyers made the case that Deutsche Bank was delighted to do business with the family and favorable loans were part of their attempts to woo them. Ivanka Trump said one of its top bankers had “expressed tremendous excitement to have our account”. Deutsche Bank severed ties with Trump in 2021 after the deadly January 6 US Capitol attack.Last month, Ivanka Trump asked the court to remove her from the prosecution’s witness list, but the request was denied. Ivanka Trump tried to argue that appearing in court would cause her “undue hardship” if she was to testify during the school week. The attorney general’s office had wanted Trump’s eldest daughter to testify in court before the former president himself took the stand, but ultimately rescheduled her appearance because of her appeal.Ivanka Trump was once listed as a co-defendant on the case, along with her father and two adult brothers, but an appeals court tossed out the claims against her last summer, saying that her involvement with the Trump Organization had passed the statute of limitations.Before the trial started, Judge Arthur Engoron found Trump guilty of inflating the value of his assets on state financial statements that were used to broker deals and obtain loans. Though Trump’s team is appealing the decision, he stands to lose his state business licenses if the appellate court sides with Engoron. The actual trial is over the fine Trump will have to pay. Prosecutors are asking for at least $250m.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIvanka Trump had served as a top executive at the Trump Organization, alongside brothers Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, until 2017, when she stepped down to assist her father at the White House. Like her siblings, she helped her father broker deals with lenders to develop properties for the company.Brothers Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump testified last week, distancing themselves from the financial statements at the center of the case despite multiple documents showing they affirmed the statements’ financial representations and were, at times, consulted for the statements.Trump has not been present in the court for any of his children’s testimony. Ahead of his daughter’s appearance he once again lambasted the judge and the New York attorney general, Letitia James, who brought the case against him, calling James, who is Black, “Corrupt and Racist,” on Truth Social, his social media site.Ivanka Trump has moved to distance herself from the family business since Trump’s election defeat. In April, she engaged her own lawyers in the New York case.Trump’s eldest daughter has also broken from the family’s line in previous testimony. In 2022 she told investigators looking into the January 6 Capitol insurrection that she did not believe the election was stolen, contrary to her father’s furious insistence. More

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      Speeches and grandstanding: Trump scores few if any legal points in court

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      When Donald Trump took the witness stand Monday morning, he started what might turn out to be his most expensive rally ever.This was supposed to be his chance to give his side of the case in a $250m fraud trial that threatens to end his business career in New York state. On the stand, Trump mentioned crime in New York City and “election interference” as if he were in front of a crowd.“Many people are leaving New York… you have the attorney general sitting here all day long, it’s a shame what’s going on,” Trump said. “We have a hostile judge, and it’s sad.”The former president’s appearance on the witness stand would feel familiar to anyone who’s ever seen a glimpse of Trump’s rallies. Outside a huge line of reporters waited to get in. Banks of TV cameras parked outside the venue. Protesters shouted. The trial judge is the sole decider of this case and the fine that is at stake. But when Trump comes to town, the circus follows.Even his testimony was reminiscent of his rallies. His statements about his real estate company were wistful, boastful and bizarre. “If I want to build something, I built a very big ballroom, a big ballroom that was built by me, it was very large, very beautiful,” Trump said when talking about using the value of Mar-a-Lago. Talking about his Scottish golf club, he promised: “At some point, at a very old age, I’ll do the most beautiful thing you’ll ever see,” he didn’t reveal what.But these pastoral passages were short-lived and overshadowed by an anger, seemingly uncontrolled at times on the stand, that was hot and furious. And the audience – at least the one that matters in the court – was having none of it.At multiple points during Trump’s testimony, Judge Arthur Engoron interrupted the former president for making “speeches” on the stand, instead of answering the prosecutor’s questions.The usually affable judge has tired of Trump and his lawyers’ grandstanding.“Did you ask for an essay on brand value?” Engoron asked the prosecutor after Trump started speaking at length about how his brand value upped the worth of his properties.Within an hour of Trump being on the stand, Engoron appeared to grow more impatient with Trump’s rambling.“I beseech you to control him or I will,” Engoron told Trump’s lawyers after Trump said “all you have to do is look at a picture of a building” to understand its value.Trump’s lawyers often stood up quickly to come to Trump’s defense, saying that he was delivering “brilliant answers” and referring to him as the “former and assumed-to-be chief executive of the United States”. When Trump’s lawyer Christopher Kise told the judge that he should hear what Trump should have to say, Engoron snapped.“No, I’m not here and these people are not here, the office of the attorney general is not here to hear him. We’re here to hear him answer the questions,” Engoron said as Trump shook his head. When Trump’s lawyers protested the judge’s comment, he sternly told them to “sit down”.Trump scored few if any legal points in the court. He often returned to the same lines of arguments, lines that the judge has rejected or questioned. He argued that the financial documents were past the statute of limitations or that he had enough cash to make lenders happy. His favorite argument seemed to be that his financial disclosures contain a disclaimer or “worthless” clause that means the banks never relied upon them.Engoron has already called that argument worthless and at one point, implored Trump to read his pre-trial ruling, where he ruled the disclosures “do not insulate defendants from liability”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“If you want to read about the disclaimer clause, read my opinion,” Engoron told Trump.Before lunch, it looked like an exasperated Engoron was so fed up of Trump’s non-answers he would throw Trump out of the courtroom. Even Trump seemed – briefly – chastened. Asked how it was going during the break, he motioned zipping his mouth shut.That didn’t last long.“The fraud is on behalf of the court,” a furious Trump barked after lunch, turning red, hands waving back and forth in front of the witness stand. He pointed to Engoron sitting next to him and, later, to New York attorney general Letitia James. “He’s the one that didn’t value the property correctly. … It’s a terrible thing you’ve done, you believed the political hack back there and that’s unfortunate.”A pause settled over the courtroom. Prosecutor Kevin Wallace looked up at Trump. “You done?” he asked the former president.“Done,” Trump responded.The trial continues. More

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      Trump trial nears end as prosecutors confident he ‘didn’t have the goods’

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      “You can’t con people – at least not for long,” Donald Trump observed in his 1987 bestseller The Art of the Deal. “You can create excitement, you can do wonderful promotion and get all kinds of press, and you can throw in a little hyperbole. But if you don’t deliver the goods, people will eventually catch on.”The former president spent decades trying to create excitement with wonderful levels of promotion, getting all kinds of press, and throwing in more than a little hyperbole. But did he have the goods?This is the central question Justice Arthur Engoron, of the state supreme court in Manhattan, has been considering over the last five weeks. On Monday, the fraud trial enters its final, fateful leg. Trump himself will take the stand. The stakes are high. Although Trump will not go to jail, regardless of the outcome, because this is a civil case, he is fighting for the future of his corporate empire.The case against Trump, although inextricably linked to his political rise, is focused on his business dealings. Hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake as the ex-real estate tycoon prepares to take the stand.Letitia James, the New York attorney general, has accused Trump and key members of his inner circle at the Trump Organization of fraudulently inflating his wealth to secure better loans from banks. She asked for $250m and the cancellation of Trump’s business licenses in New York, a move that would end the Trumps’ ability to run businesses in the state.This is not a jury trial, and Engoron has already made up his mind on the foundation of the case, finding Trump and his adult sons guilty of financial fraud before the trial started. Should an appellate court uphold this ruling, Trump will essentially lose the ability to operate his business in New York – and control of properties including Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan, from whose golden staircase Trump launched his successful presidential campaign.“The judge has already found fraud,” said Jed Handelsman Shugerman, professor of law at Boston University. “The question is the extent of the liability and the remedy. It seems like it’s going in a direction that will be a very serious liability and very serious remedy.”The court’s attention turned this week to his eldest sons. This is a family business, after all, officially run by Donald Jr and Eric since their father assumed the presidency.Both brothers sought to distance themselves from the alleged fraud, insisting it was up to others to ensure financial records were correct. “For purposes of accounting, I relied upon the accountants,” Don Jr, executive vice-president of the Trump Organization, said. “I never had anything to do with the statements of financial condition,” Eric, also executive vice-president at the company, added hours later.Their sister, Ivanka, is also scheduled to be questioned on Wednesday. Unlike Don Jr and Eric, she is not a named defendant in the case. While her lawyers argued she should not have to testify, this request was denied by an appeals court.While the family appearances are grabbing all the headlines, Engoron might ultimately be more interested in testimony that could help gauge the liability of the alleged fraud. On Wednesday Michiel McCarty, chair and CEO of the investment bank MM Dillon & Co, said the inflation of Trump’s wealth allowed the Trump Organization to secure better rates for loans. He calculated that banks lost more than $168m in interest payments as a result.The media spotlight on this trial has been brightest when high-profile witnesses – from Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer turned foe, to the former president himself next week – take the stand. But at the heart of the action sit stacks of emails, contracts and financial statements. “There’s enough evidence in this case to fill this courtroom,” Engoron remarked last month, as he rejected another bid by Trump’s lawyers to obtain an early verdict.Gregory Germain, professor of law at Syracuse University, said prosecutors must demonstrate that Trump was “unjustly enriched” by falsified financial statements. “In order to do that, the attorney general needs to show that somebody took these statements at face value, believed they were true, and made loans at lower interest rates that they would have, or priced an insurance policy at a lower price – something to show they were harmed by this, and he was enriched.”This element was “completely missing in the earlier stages of the case”, Germain added.Trump is set to be grilled over allegations that documents fraudulently magnified the value of his assets. Earlier in the trial, for example, prosecutors noted that his Trump Tower apartment was once listed as 30,000 sq ft and worth $327m, despite other paperwork – including one document signed by the former president in 1994 – reporting that the apartment was actually under 11,000 sq ft.Commentators expect Trump, like his sons, to try and distance himself from the accounting. But he is likely to be asked by prosecutors about allegations that he directly, if not explicitly, instructed executives to inflate his net worth.Cohen, his former personal attorney, testified that Trump would scrutinize the value of his assets and declare, “I’m actually not worth $4.5bn, I’m really worth more like 6,” before sending senior executives away. They would return to him “after we achieved the desired goal,” according to Cohen.A current Trump Organization employee, Patrick Birney, testified that the chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg informed him between 2017 and 2019 that Trump – by this point in the White House – wanted his net worth to go up.Since Engoron’s pre-trial ruling, Trump has argued he is worth “much more” than what is shown in his financial statements, which don’t include what he describes as his “most valuable” asset: his brand. The Trump Organization has been “slandered and maligned”, he has complained, denying his fortune was exaggerated.The former real estate mogul will attempt in the coming days to make the case that his empire was accurately valued. Even after Engoron ruled otherwise, Trump insists no one lost out as a result.Prosecutors are confident they are on the cusp of bringing Trump to justice. They believe – to paraphrase the defendant’s observation some four decades ago – that he didn’t have the goods, and they’re catching on. On Monday we may see who really has the goods. More

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      Trump family on trial: five takeaways from a week in the New York fraud case

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      The fifth week of the New York fraud trial of Donald Trump ended smack in the middle of a family affair and with another gag order for the combative Trump team.Trump’s elder sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, took the witness stand in New York this week and testified they had little knowledge about the financial statements at the center of the case. Next week, Donald Trump is expected to take the stand on Monday, followed by daughter Ivanka Trump on Wednesday.The New York attorney general’s office has been building its case that Trump, his adult sons and executives at the Trump Organization knowingly inflated the value of assets to boost the former president’s net worth when brokering deals. Judge Arthur Engoron ruled before the trial started that documents prove the family had fudged financial statements to do this. The trial has been about whether Trump will have to pay a fine of at least $250m for committing fraud.It’s getting closer to the end. The attorney general’s office plans to rest its case against Trump after the family finishes testifying.Here are five things we learned from the trial’s fraught fifth week.The Trump family’s strategy: blame gameOver the three days that Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump testified on the witness stand, both brothers pointed to the company’s accountants and lawyers as responsible for handling the financial statements at the center of the case.This is despite multiple emails and signed documents that show the brothers, who serve as top executives of their father’s company, were consulted by employees preparing the statements and brokered deals in which the statements were used to confirm Trump’s net worth.Trump Jr said that they relied on the accountants Mazars to include accurate information in the statements, as they were “intimately involved” with the company’s finances.“Mazars for 30 years was involved in every transaction, every LLC. They would have been a key point in anything that was related to accounting,” Trump Jr said.It’s worth noting that Mazars USA dropped the Trump Organization as a client in 2022, and a representative from the firm, Donald Bender, who had worked closely with the Trump Organization, said earlier in the trial that he relied on the Trump Organization to give him accurate information.Later that day, when Eric Trump took the stand, he similarly insisted that the company’s accountants and lawyers were in charge of the financial statements.“I never had anything to do with the statements of financial condition,” Eric Trump said.Prosecutors questioned Eric Trump about an appraisal for the Trump Organization by the real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield for a conservation easement, or a type of tax break. Eric Trump said he had no recollection of the appraisal, though emails shown in court showed multiple meetings and emails he had had with the appraiser at the time in 2014.“I really hadn’t been involved in the appraisal of the property,” Eric Trump said on the stand, appearing to grow frustrated. “You pointed out four interactions … I don’t recall McArdle [the appraiser] at all. I don’t think I was the main person involved.“I don’t focus on appraisals, that’s not the focus of my day,” Eric Trump followed up, speaking quickly, saying that he was focused on construction and physical development of properties.Trump’s elder sons signed multiple documents saying the company was giving fair and accurate information in its financial statementsBoth of Trump’s adult sons denied ever working on the statements of financial condition. Eric Trump went so far as to imply that he only ever learned about the statement when the attorney general opened the case against the family. But multiple documents show both brothers signed off on deals that involved the use of the financial statements to confirm their father’s net worth.Trump gave his sons power of attorney, meaning they could sign documents on his behalf, including bank certifications affirming the use of statements of financial conditions to verify Trump’s net worth and assets.Responding to these certifications, Trump Jr said that he would have “signed a dozen of them during his time at the company”. When asked whether he signed the certifications with the intention that the banks would rely on the financial statements, Trump Jr said that he could not speak to the intent of the banks.“I know a lot of bankers that do their own due diligence,” he said.The next day, when a similar bank certification was pulled up for Eric Trump, he responded: “I don’t choose what the bank relies on” but said that he believed the statements were “absolutely accurate”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe paper trail is thicker for Eric Trump, but …Eric Trump got the brunt of questioning when it came to his knowledge of financial statements in the company. Multiple email correspondences suggested he had been consulted for the statement over the years.Multiple emails came from the former Trump Organization controller Jeff McConney, who wrote two separate emails to Eric Trump, one in 2013 and another in 2017, that started with: “Hi Eric, I’m working on your dad’s financial statement … ”.McConney would go on to note in a spreadsheet of supporting data for the financial statement that he had talked to Eric Trump over the phone to discuss the figures for the Seven Springs estate in Westchester, New York.“Having reviewed the emails we’ve been discussing over the course of the last hour, will you now concede that you were very familiar with [the financial statements]?” prosecutor Andrew Amer asked Eric Trump.“No, I was not very familiar with my father’s financial statement,” Eric Trump said.In another exchange with the prosecutor on correspondence over a North Carolina golf club, where Eric was consulted to affirm the family’s net worth for the deal, he said: “I do not recall ever working on my father’s statement of financial condition.”“People in the company have conversations with you all the time, and you provide them with answers when you can,” he said.Donald Trump Jr was also presented with emails from accountants that cited multiple discussions with Trump trustees, including Trump Jr, over the years that accountants used to confirm no changes to Trump’s net worth. Trump Jr replied that he had “no recollection” of the meetings.Trump Organization lenders lost out on an estimated $168m because of fudged financial statementsThe attorney general’s office brought in an expert witness, Michiel McCarty, the chief executive of an investment bank, to testify about the losses lenders unwittingly accrued when making deals with the Trump Organization because it had inflated the value of its assets.McCarty explained that if lenders had been given accurate valuations for the assets, they could have charged the Trump Organization higher interest rates. McCarty calculated the lost interest for loans given for four properties in the case at $168,040,168.Patience is wearing thin in the courtroomIn the middle of Eric Trump’s testimony, as prosecutors were pointing out that Trump invoked the fifth amendment against self-incrimination 500 times during his deposition for the case in 2022, Trump lawyers stood up to object. The objection soon boiled into a heated argument between Trump lawyer Christopher Kise and the judge, Arthur Engoron, over bias in the case. Kise made a passing comment about Engoron’s law clerk, whom Trump has attacked on social media, for her role in the trial, specifically that she passes notes to him during the proceedings.“I have an absolute right to get advice from my principal law clerk,” Engoron said, at one point pounding his fist on the bench. Engoron said that the continued references to his law clerk could be taken as stemming from misogyny. A defensive Kise said that they were “not misogynistic. I have a 17-year-old daughter.”The next day, when the issue was brought up again, Kise gave a speech on “perception of bias in the case” for “the record”. At some point, prosecutor Kevin Wallace stepped in to say that the defense team had been making similar claims for “weeks” and that they should file a motion instead of “continuing to interrupt the trial”. Engoron would ultimately expand a gag order, originally for just Trump, to his entire defense team prohibiting them from referring to “confidential communications” between him and his clerk.He also revealed his chambers had been “inundated with hundreds of harassing and threatening phone calls, voicemails, emails, letters and packages” since the trial began. More

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      Ring any bells? Trump boys show less than total recall at family fraud trial

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      In 1990, Ronald Reagan testified at the trial of John Poindexter, his former national security adviser caught up in the Iran-Contra affair. Two years out of office, questioned for eight hours, the former US president memorably said “I don’t recall” or “I can’t remember” no less than 88 times.This week, the two adult sons of one of Reagan’s Republican successors took the stand in New York, for testimony in a $250m civil fraud trial in which the judge has already determined the family’s guilt and now seeks to determine their penalty.On the campaign trail, Donald Trump often pays tribute to Reagan. In the courtroom, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump tipped the hat to the master of repetitive deflection under legal examination.On Wednesday, Trump Jr answered several questions in the Reagan manner. Asked, for example, about the Donald J Trump Revocable Trust, and if his father was still one of its trustees, he simply said: “I don’t recall.”On Thursday, Trump Jr was asked about a $2m severance package given earlier this year to Allen Weisselberg, the longtime Trump Organization chief financial officer who went to jail for tax fraud. He could not recall much, he said.Eric Trump followed his older brother on to the stand. Asked if he remembered a 2013 phone call about a statement of financial condition – documents at the heart of the case against the Trumps, prosecutors alleging they routinely made inaccurate statements in search of financial advantage – his answer was longer than his brother’s. But it still contained the magic words.“I don’t believe I ever saw or worked on the statement of financial condition,” Eric Trump said. “I don’t believe I had any knowledge of it. I think I was 26 years old. I don’t recall – I was not aware of it, I never worked on it, and I didn’t know about it until this case came into fruition.”He was asked about an email in which a now former Trump lawyer said she spoke to him about an appraisal for Seven Springs, a family estate in New York that has been at the heart of reporting about Trump’s tax affairs.The appraiser valued the estate at $50m. Eric Trump said he did not share that valuation with Jeff McConney, controller of the Trump Organization and a co-defendant, because “I would have never thought to because I didn’t work on this document”.Eventually, the Trumps valued Seven Springs at $291m.Regarding Briarcliff Manor, a New York golf course, an email was read out in which a Trump Organization lawyer said: “I spoke to Eric and he is aware that the more supportable value at this point is around $45m.” In Trump Organization financial statements from 2013 to 2018, the course was valued $58m higher.In court, Eric Trump said: “I really hadn’t been involved in the appraisal of the property … I don’t recall [the appraiser] at all. I don’t think I was the main person involved. I don’t focus on appraisals, that’s not the focus of my day.”Even when confronted with evidence of his involvement in such matters, Trump would only concede: “It appears that way.”Observers were not impressed. Andrew Weissmann, a former federal prosecutor who worked for the special counsel Robert Mueller on the investigation of Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow, said: “Don Jr and Eric Trump’s ‘defense’ … appears so far to be that they were derelict in their duties as executives and trustees.”The main show is yet to come. Donald Trump and his oldest daughter, Ivanka Trump, are due to testify next. But even if the Trump boys were just a warm-up, they put on a masterclass of reliably unreliable recall.Asked if he had been involved in preparing an allegedly manipulated statement about a golf course deal, Eric said: “Not that I recall.”Then, he produced the mot juste: “I don’t know what I knew at the time.” More