Justice is a-comin'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
New York AG sues Trump, his children and their company on charges of large-scale business fraud
James alleges the Trump Organization inflated the values of its properties in seeking bank loans or deflated them to pay less in taxes.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/new-york-ag-sues-trump-children-company-charges-large-scale-business-f-rcna48668
New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a sweeping lawsuit Wednesday against former President Donald Trump, his three eldest children and the Trump Organization in connection with her yearslong civil investigation into the company’s business practices.
In the suit, which runs more than 200 pages, James’ office details what it says are the former president's efforts to inflate his personal net worth to attract favorable loan agreements and lists more than 200 alleged instances of fraud over 10 years.
James is seeking to bar the Trump family from being in the office of any New York-based company for five years and from receiving loans from any New York-registered financial institution for that same amount of time. She is also seeking about $250 million in penalties.
“For too long, powerful, wealthy people in this country have operated as if the rules do not apply to them," James said in a statement. "Donald Trump stands out as among the most egregious examples of this misconduct. With the help of his children and senior executives at the Trump Organization, Donald Trump falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars to unjustly enrich himself and cheat the system."
James' office said in a release that the former president made fraudulent and misleading statements “in both their composition and their presentation.” Trump made known through Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s former chief financial officer, that he wanted his net worth to increase every year and used financial statements as a “vehicle” to fraudulently inflate his net worth by billions of dollars annually, the office alleges.
Trump and his company falsely claimed their statements were prepared in consultation with outside professionals, James said, adding that the statements blatantly violated “generally accepted accounting principles.” Those violations include representing that Trump had cash on hand that he did not, ignoring critical restrictions that would significantly lower property values when setting valuations, changing the methodology for estimating such values from year to year and using different methods for different properties even in the same year, and including intangible items when making the calculations.
At a news conference Wednesday, James also detailed Trump and his company's alleged violations of state and federal laws by having “repeatedly and persistently manipulated the value of assets to induce banks to lend money” to the organization “on more favorable terms than would otherwise have been available to the company."
For example, the former president inflated the square footage of his triplex apartment in Trump Tower, she said.
“Mr. Trump represented that his apartments spanned more than 30,000 square feet, which was the basis for valuing the apartment," she said. "In reality, the apartment had an area of less than 11,000 square feet, something that Mr. Trump was well aware of.”
Asked during the news conference whether she would be willing to reach a settlement agreement, James declined to "negotiate in public," but confirmed a New York Times report last week that her office had rejected a settlement offer.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment to NBC News on the criminal referral from James' office.