NEW YORK: Attorney General Letitia James wants to to determine the Trump family knowledge of numerous “misleading statements and omissions” in tax filings and financial statements used to obtain loans, according to investigators
“OAG requires the testimony and evidence sought herein to determine which Trump Organization employees and affiliates — and which other entities and individuals — may have assisted the Trump Organization and Mr Trump is making, or may have relevant knowledge about, the misstatements and omissions,” investigators wrote in a court filing late Tuesday.
The Statement Continues “The Trump Organization’s senior witnesses have invoked their Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination. Others have claimed they have a bad memory or that they were following orders from higher-ranking personnel.”
“However, Mr Trump’s actual knowledge of — and purpose to make — the multiple misstatements and omissions made by him or on his behalf are crucial components to concluding the OAG’s inquiry reasonably and equitably,” according to the brief.
“Similarly, Donald Trump, Jr. and Ivanka Trump operated as Mr Trump’s agents, acted on their behalf, and supervised others in connection with the transactions at issue here; their testimony is also required for the OAG’s inquiry to be properly resolved.”
Donald Trump Jr. was involved in several properties, including 40 Wall Street, and certified the accuracy of the financial statements from 2017 forward, according to the attorney general’s office.
Ivanka Trump was a key liaison with lender Deutsche Bank.
Investigators stated that around a dozen current and former Trump Organization workers had testified and that Trump himself authorized the production of his tax returns, according to lengthy court documents.
“Given the widespread and frequent nature of the misstatements and omissions,” the investigators said,
“it seems that the values in the Statements were usually inflated as part of a pattern to indicate that Mr Trump’s net worth was larger than it otherwise would have looked.”
They went on to say that when Eric Trump and Allen Weisselberg, the former CFO, testified in 2020, they both used their Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination in answer to moreover 500 questions apiece.
The New York attorney general’s office has stated that it is focusing on several particular alleged misstatements, including:
- Trump mislabeled assets, not under his or the Trump Organization’s control as “cash,” inflating his liquidity;
- The procedure by which Trump or his associates arrived at valuations was misrepresented, including deviations from widely accepted accounting rules that were not disclosed in the financial statements;
- Failed to apply basic valuation approaches such as discounting future revenues and costs to their current worth, or selecting only similar properties as “comparables” when imputing valuations from public sales data;
- Failed to disclose that certain valuation values were inflated by an unknown sum for brand value, and misrepresented the alleged involvement of “independent specialists” in achieving the valuations.
As, well as, the size of Trump’s penthouse at Trump Tower
Trump hasn’t responded to demands for records, according to James’ office.
They claim, for example, that while Trump did not use email, they gathered from witnesses that he preserved paper copies of documents and spoke with workers via sticky notes.
According to them, a file cabinet containing Trump’s data was never inspected in response to demand.
“The Trump Organization decided, improbably, that Mr Trump was not engaged in the production of his financial statements,” they wrote.
The alleged false claims were communicated with lenders, according to James’ office, and insurers said that “almost all of the advantages from the inaccurate appraisals came to Donald J Trump.”
The office also stated that it had information that Trump may have received more than $5 million in federal tax advantages through allegedly deceptive assessments acquired from tax benefits taken at the Trump National Golf Course in Los Angeles and the family residence in New York known as Seven Springs.
Since 2019, James’ office has been pursuing a civil investigation of the Trump Organization and the veracity of its financial records, which Trump has referred to as a “political witch hunt.”
The former President has filed a lawsuit against James, stating that she has violated his constitutional rights, and has requested a judge to impose a preliminary injunction to stop the probe or remove her from it.
In December, James’ office issued subpoenas for Trump and his adult children, prompting Trumps’ lawyers to file a motion to quash the subpoenas earlier this month, claiming that the attorney general, whose office is conducting a civil investigation and whose attorneys have joined a criminal investigation led by the Manhattan district attorney’s office, was attempting to “circumvent the entire grand jury process.”
“A civil deposition is virtually the same as a deposition by the DANY,” they said, “but without the constitutional protections accorded every witness through the grand jury process.
Witnesses who testify in front of a New York state grand jury are granted transactional immunity and cannot be punished unless they lie under oath.
They suggested that James is attempting to circumvent those rights by obtaining testimony in a civil action that may later be utilized by criminal prosecutors.
In a civil matter, a jury might hold defendants liable or draw an unfavorable inference if they refuse to testify.
The idea was rejected by James’ attorneys in a Tuesday filing, who said that the Trumps may use their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.
“Each witness has the right to use the Fifth Amendment to protect themselves from self-incrimination. In a civil inquiry (or any other civil or administrative action), a witness using such privilege is neither rare nor a violation of a fundamental right “The lawyers sent a letter.
By New York City Newswire Journalist Brian Harrod
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