Eric Trump tells trial he relied on accountants for key financial documents
3 November 2023, 19:54
Donald Trump is scheduled to give evidence on Monday in the civil fraud case.
Evidence from Donald Trump’s adult sons in his civil business fraud trial has wrapped up with Eric Trump saying he relied completely on accountants and lawyers to assure the accuracy of financial documents.
Donald Trump is scheduled to give evidence on Monday in the case, which comes as he leads Republican 2024 presidential hopefuls and fights four separate criminal cases.
The unrelated civil case, brought by New York attorney general Letitia James, accuses him, his company and executives of deceiving banks and insurers by exaggerating his wealth on his annual financial statements.
He and the other defendants, including sons Eric and Donald Jr, deny the allegations.
Outside court on Friday, Eric Trump told reporters: “We’re going to win this thing. I promise you we’re going to win it because we haven’t done a damn thing wrong.”
He and his older brother are executive vice presidents of the Trump Organisation, and became trustees of a trust set up to run the company when their father went to the White House.
The sons signed, for example, yearly letters that certified their father’s financial wherewithal to lender Deutsche Bank. Echoing evidence from Donald Trump Jr earlier this week, Eric Trump said he trusted company finance executives and an outside accounting firm to ensure the information was correct.
“I would not sign something that was not accurate,” he said during his second day in the witness box.
“I relied on one of the biggest accounting firms in the country. And I relied on a great legal team. And when they gave me comfort that the statement was perfect, I was more than happy to execute.”
He said he did not dig into the details of his father’s “statement of financial condition”. Ms James’s office says the documents contained grossly inflated values for assets ranging from Trump Tower in New York to the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.
Emails shown in court indicate that Eric Trump was asked for information to help complete the statement in 2013, and another Trump Organisation executive has told the court that the younger Trump was on a video call about the document as recently as 2021. Eric Trump reiterated on Friday that he had no memory of the call.
“I get thousands of calls,” he said, saying he picks up his phone at 5am each day and puts it down at midnight.
Speaking to reporters outside the courtroom, he called the case a “charade” and a waste of taxpayers’ money. Echoing his father, he also cast the case as a political “witch hunt.”
Meanwhile, lawyers for the ex-president, his sons and their company again pressed allegations that Judge Arthur Engoron is being improperly influenced by his principal law clerk.
Judge Engoron strongly denied the claims and, as he had a day earlier, told the lawyers not to broach the matter again.
Ms James and Judge Engoron are Democrats, and his principal law clerk, Allison Greenfield, ran as a Democrat for a civil court judgeship last year.
A Trump social media post disparaging Ms Greenfield a month ago spurred a partial gagging order that bans parties to the trial from commenting publicly on the judge’s staff. Fines followed, after Judge Engoron said the ex-president violated the order.
Meanwhile, Trump’s lawyers have repeatedly complained in court about the clerk’s notes to the judge during evidence.
The contents of the notes have not been disclosed, but the lawyers argue that the messages indicate possible bias against their case.
Judge Engoron insists he has an “absolute, unfettered right” to input from his clerk, and that he does not see how such advice is a sign of bias. He told the defence on Thursday that he might expand the gag order to include lawyers if anyone refers to a member of his staff again.
