Donald Trump returned this week to the civil fraud trial threatening his real estate empire, watching and lamenting as an employee and an outside appraiser testified that his company essentially put a thumb on the scale when assessing the value of his properties.
Angered by a case that is challenging his net worth and could strip him of such signature properties as Trump Tower, the former president is expected to testify later in the trial. But he chose to attend the first three days and returned on Tuesday to observe – and to protest his treatment to news cameras waiting outside the Manhattan courtroom.
Key witness Michael Cohen, a former Trump fixer turned enemy, postponed his scheduled testimony because of a health problem.
Instead, Trump company accountant Donna Kidder testified that she was told to make some assumptions on internal financial spreadsheets that were favourable to the company. Outside appraiser Doug Larson said he didn’t suggest or condone a former Trump Organisation comptroller’s methods of valuing properties.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Larson said of the way the ex-controller arrived at a $287.6 million value for a prominent Trump-owned retail space in 2013.
Outside court, Trump reiterated his insistence that he’s done nothing wrong and that New York Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit is a political vendetta designed to drag down his 2024 presidential campaign, when he leads the Republican field.
“We built a great company – a lot of money, it’s got a lot of great assets, some of the greatest real estate assets in the world,” Trump said outside the courtroom. He dismissed the case as “a disgrace”, the legal system as “corrupt” and the Democratic attorney general as a “radical lunatic”.
James: ‘Trump may lie, numbers don’t’
James’ lawsuit alleges that Trump and his company defrauded banks, insurers and others by massively overvaluing his assets and inflating his net worth on his financial statements.
“Mr Trump may lie, but numbers don’t lie,” she said after court.
“He can call me names, he can create distractions,” she said, “but his entire empire was built on nothing but lies and sinking sand.”
Trump says his assets were actually undervalued and claims that the disclaimers on his financial statements amounted to telling banks and other recipients to check his figures for themselves.
Larson, a real estate executive and certified appraiser, valued Trump properties for lenders. He was taken aback when told on the stand that he was repeatedly cited as an outside expert in the valuation spreadsheets of former Trump Organisation controller Jeffrey McConney.
“It’s inappropriate and inaccurate,” Larson testified. “I should have been told and an appraisal should have been ordered.”
When it came to valuing a storefront formerly known as Niketown, McConney relied on rates of return for a different type of property, rather than for comparable retail space, Larson testified. He also said he valued a Trump-owned Wall Street building at $540 million in 2015, while McConney valued it at $735.4 million on Trump’s financial statement.
In cross-examining Larson, Trump lawyer Lazaro Fields asked if there was “anything that prevents President Trump, as a real estate developer, from appraising his own properties”.
“I don’t know. I don’t know,” Larson replied. Pressed again, Larson said: “Not that I know of.”
