Former President Donald Trump told the judge presiding over his New York civil fraud trial on Thursday that he is an “innocent man” while lawyers from the state attorney general’s office painted him as a fraudster who routinely lied about his net worth in a scheme to line his pockets with even more money.
“It’s up to me now and will do my best to have a final decision by January 31st,” Judge Arthur Engoron said after both sides presented their closing arguments in a case that could cost Trump up to $370 million and see him permanently banned from the New York real estate industry where he made his name.
The trial started Oct. 2, and testimony wrapped in mid-December. The case will be decided by Engoron since this is a bench trial with no jury.
Trump wound up directly addressing the judge Thursday after his attorney Chris Kise asked if the former president could speak for two to three minutes during closing arguments. “No one is more affected” in the case than Trump, Kise told the judge.
Engoron had rejected a similar request in an email Wednesday after Kise and Trump did not agree to refrain from personal attacks in his proposed closing statement. Engoron told Trump on Thursday after his lawyers had finished their summations that he could speak for up to five minutes but to “focus on the facts” of the case. Trump immediately started talking without agreeing.
“We have a situation where I’m an innocent man,” Trump told the judge. “They should pay me for what I’ve gone through.”
“This is not consumer fraud,” Trump added. “This is no fraud. It is a fraud on me.”
Despite the judge’s warning, Trump did wrap in some insults against the judge and New York Attorney General Letitia James. “I know this is boring to you. I know you have your own agenda,” Trump angrily told the judge at one point as he spoke while seated at the defense table. He suggested James “hates” him and “doesn’t want him to get elected,” and called the case a “persecution,” leading Engoron to warn Kise to “please control your client.”
James, who was in court for the proceedings, told reporters afterwards that the case “has never been about politics.”
“This case is about the facts and the law, and Mr. Donald Trump violated the law,” she said.
Kevin Wallace of the AG’s office said in his closing statement that Trump’s financial statements were “false every year” between 2011 and 2021 by “over a billion dollars.” Wallace said that “what the trial is all about is ‘what did the defendants know and when did they know it?'” “Were they acting with intent when they manipulated their annual financial statements as part of a conspiracy … Did they know it? And the answer is yes,” Wallace said.
Another lawyer from the AG’s office, Andrew Amer, pointed to several examples of what he described as intentional fraud, including Trump valuing his Mar-a-Lago estate as a private residence despite an agreement it could only be used as a social club. Trump also claimed his Trump Tower triplex apartment was three times its size and estimated value, and Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg signed off on a financial statement that continued to value the apartment at over $300 million even after he’d been alerted it was 10,000 square feet instead of 30,000. “That screams of an intent to defraud,” Amer said.
Trump, Amer said, was the one responsible for the preparation of the documents “and the buck stops with him.”
The former president was not present for closing arguments from the AG’s office. He held a press conference simultaneously at his nearby 40 Wall St. property — one of the key buildings in the case. He told reporters there that James is a “political hack” and “we’ve proven the case so conclusively.”
The judge’s verdict could dramatically impact Trump’s business. The case is just one of several legal issues surrounding the former president, who is seeking another term in the White House. Trump is facing the prospect of up to four criminal trials this year and a multimillion-dollar damages trial related to writer E. Jean Carroll’s defamation suit.
Addressing reporters on his way into the courtroom, Trump denied any wrongdoing and called the case “election interference at the highest level.”
James, whose office brought the case alleging Trump and his company had engaged in fraud by overstating the value of his assets and properties in financial documents spanning over a decade, was in the courtroom, as well.
Protesters gathered outside the courthouse Thursday morning ahead of the final day of the trial, chanting, “Thank you Tish!” and holding a banner that read, “No Dictators in the USA.”
Entrance to the courtroom was delayed Thursday morning after police responded to a bomb threat at Engoron’s home.
Arguments started shortly after 10 a.m. ET. Kise spoke first and said that during the 44 days of trial testimony, “not one witness said there was fraud or identified a material misstatement” in Trump’s financial statements — a claim the AG’s office pushed back on. “There is direct evidence of an intent to defraud,” Amer said.
Kise acknowledged there was one witness who testified that Trump knew he was committing fraud — his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen. But Kise ripped him as “a serial liar” who acknowledged on the witness stand that he’d lied under oath previously.
“He is making up a story based on something that is convenient,” Kise said of Cohen. “He hates President Trump and he makes money trashing President Trump. What better reason to come here and create lies and gin up a bunch of media attention for his blogs.”
Kise also minimized the overall importance of the financial statements, saying they had been prepared by Trump’s trusted accountants and had no impact on the favorable interest rates Trump was able to get from banks he was borrowing from. He said the banks knew Trump and “rolled out the red carpet” for him, and that the AG should be “praising President Trump as a business success.”
Kise was followed by Habba, who was representing the Trump Organization. She said the two Trump employees who were most responsible for the financial statements, Weisselberg and former senior vice president Jeff McConney, were not accountants and relied on the accounting firm they hired for guidance. She said Cohen had portrayed the pair and Trump as being “like the mob” and engaging in “collusion.” “There’s no proof” of that, Habba said.
Her brief presentation was followed by attorney Cliff Robert, who’s representing Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., the Trump sons who are now running the company. He said there’s a “lack of evidence” for the AG when it comes to the pair. “There is no case. There’s nothing there,” Robert said. “There’s no there there.”
The AG is seeking to have both sons barred from the real estate industry in New York for five years. The ban on their father, Weisselberg and McConney that the AG is seeking would be a lifetime ban.
“They have not expressed any remorse,” Wallace said of Trump and his former executives. As for Trump, “nothing is his fault. Everything is a conspiracy and unjust. He’s the victim.”
Engoron voiced skepticism about whether the AG had shown the Trump sons had an intent to defraud. The pair signed off on the company’s financial statement after Trump was inaugurated in 2017, and at the very least “did not do anything to fulfill their responsibilities” to make sure the statements were accurate, Amer said.
The judge then said a recent court filing from the AG’s office didn’t lay out much evidence the pair were aware of fraud either.
James filed her $250 million suit against Trump, the Trump Organization and top executives, including Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., in 2022 after a yearslong investigation into their business practices. Engoron found before the trial that Trump and his executives had engaged in repeated and persistent fraud. Among the outstanding issues is whether they’d had an intent to defraud.
Trump maintains his properties were worth even more than the inflated financial statements showed. He has also repeatedly argued he shouldn’t have to pay any damages because he never defaulted on any of his loans or insurance policies.
The AG’s office has said the Trumps “reaped hundreds of millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains through their unlawful conduct.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
