Donald Trump Jr. returned to the witness stand Monday as lawyers of former President Donald Trump begin presenting their case in the $250 million civil fraud trial that poses threats to the Trump family’s real estate empire.
“You thought you were rid of me, your honor,” Trump Jr. told Judge Arthur Engoron as he began to testify in the case for the second time in two weeks.
He’s the first witness for the defense. His younger brother Eric Trump and his father are expected to be back on the stand later as the defense presents its case. Trump attorney Chris Kise has said he expects they’ll wrap up their presentation by Dec. 15.
Prosecutors rested their case Wednesday while reserving the right to recall Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s former chief financial officer. Weisselberg and the company were hit with tax fraud charges in 2021 by the Manhattan district attorney’s office. Weisselberg pleaded guilty in the case and the company was convicted at trial.
Upon entering the Oval Office in 2017, Trump handed off management of his company to his adult sons and named Trump Jr. as a trustee.
Trump Jr. took the stand earlier this month, answering questions about his role at the Trump Organization and the degree of his involvement in financial statements that New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office alleges were inflated to benefit the company. The former president, Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump, also testified in the trial this month.
James alleges the Trumps have been engaged in a yearslong scheme of exaggerating their business assets. Judge Arthur Engoron, who is presiding over the nonjury trial in Manhattan, partly sided with James’ office in a ruling in September, finding that the Trumps had repeatedly committed acts of fraud for years.
The Trumps have denied wrongdoing against the allegations that they inflated the company’s net worth by billions of dollars on financial statements, with the former president repeatedly claiming the case is a politically motivated “witch hunt.”
Trump testified that any errors in the statements were “nonmaterial.”
“I think that the statements of financial condition were very good, were actually somewhat conservative and in some cases very conservative,” Trump said, claiming that some properties were actually worth even more than what was listed in his financial statements, which he said were prepared by his accountants.
Both Trump Jr. and Eric Trump testified that they barely had any involvement with the annual financial statements of the company, which they had signed. They said they relied on the accounting firm they had hired.
“I rely on the accountants,” Trump Jr. said. “They were intimately involved in every aspect” of the statements.
Eric Trump claimed similarly when asked what due diligence he performed on the financial statements during his testimony: “I relied on a very big accounting office. 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 it.”
Ivanka Trump also denied involvement with her father’s financial statements and claimed she lacked insight into their preparation. “I would assume he would have personal financial statements that he would work on with his own accountants, but those weren’t things that I was privy to,” she said, adding that “it was not something that I was involved in.”
Adam Reiss and Dareh Gregorian contributed.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
