Trump's sons testify in New York civil fraud trial

The New York Attorney General’s office pressed Donald Trump’s two adult sons Thursday about their knowledge of and involvement with the former president’s financial statements in some of the most significant and tense days of the fraud trial.

The back-to-back appearances Thursday from Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump — who both helped run the Trump Organization while their father was in the White House — comes ahead of the former president’s own testimony on Monday.

Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump are co-defendants in the case, along with their father, the Trump Org., and several company executives.

Here are some key takeaways from the day in court:

Eric Trump confronted with emails showing his work on Trump’s finances: Assistant Attorney General Andrew Amer’s examination grew tense as he pressed Eric Trump about his understanding of his father’s financial statements that were used to support real estate transactions and confronted him with a series of emails dating back to 2010.

Eric Trump acknowledged he provided information to former Trump Organization controller Jeff McConney, who is also a co-defendant in the trial. But he tried to distinguish between specific statements of financial condition — his father’s personal financial statements at the heart of the civil case — and general financial records for the company.

The distinction is relevant because Donald Trump’s statements of finances are the documents that the attorney general pointed to as evidence that he inflated the values of his properties to boost his net worth — and obtain favorable loan terms.

An expert witness for the attorney general testified Wednesday the Trump Organization saved $168 million thanks to the loan rates obtained with the help of fraudulent information.

Donald Trump Jr. said he relied on accountants: Donald Trump Jr. repeatedly said he relied on his accountants and was not involved with the preparations of financial statements for his father, even though he signed them as a trustee of his father’s revocable trust.

He testified that he didn’t draft the financial statements, and when he certified them as a trustee, he relied on the Trump Organization accounting and legal teams that he said assured him they were accurate to sign.

The attorney general’s office and Trump’s lawyers got into a lengthy back-and-forth over attorney-client privilege after Faherty asked what steps the Trump Organization had taken once the attorney general’s investigation into the company began in 2019.

Some internal policies and methodologies “have been bolstered” since the investigation began, Trump Jr. said. One of those changes, he said, was hiring a chief financial officer who is a certified public accountant.

Read more about the Trumps' fraud case here.

Judge Arthur Engoron admonished Donald Trump’s lawyer Chris Kise at the end of the day Thursday after Kise made an offhand comment about the conduct of Engoron’s clerk.  

The trial devolved into tense arguments over defense objections to assistant attorney general Andrew Amer’s attack on Eric Trump’s credibility, when he reminded the court that Eric Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment rights in an investigatory interview years ago in this case. 

Trump’s legal team accused Amer of seeking headlines by bringing up the interview that was years ago. They reminded the court that Eric Trump did not invoke his Fifth Amendment during his deposition taken in March. 

After the objection, Kise made a comment that angered the judge but was inaudible in much of the courtroom. Engoron warned Kise about making comments about his clerk, reminding him that had already put a gag order barring public comment about his staff and suggesting that further commentary would prompt him to extend it to the lawyers as well. 

Engoron said there could be “a bit of misogyny” in the continued criticism of his female law clerk. 

Kise responded that the objections he was making were relevant to the case, and he was allowed to raise concerns about the process of the trial.

Kise said it appeared there was sometimes “co-judging” taking place, noting that someone was handing him information on a frequent basis. “Yesterday we counted 30, 40 times,” he said. 

Another Trump attorney, Alina Habba, then stood to defend Kise, saying he was not misogynistic. “I have the same frankly issues with the person sitting on the bench,” she said. “It’s distracting, and it is insulting.”  

Engoron said he has a right to seek counsel from his clerk and Trump’s legal team has no right to know what they are. 

“She’s a civil servant, she’s doing what I ask her to do.” Those notes are “confidential communications from my law clerk,” Engoron said, now pounding on the bench. 

Eric Trump, still on the witness stand during the exchange, appeared visibly uncomfortable, looking away as Kise and Engoron argued. 

Assistant Attorney General Andrew Amer reviewed a series of interactions Eric Trump had with Trump Organization lawyers and an appraiser from Cushman & Wakefield, who was contracted for appraisals of a potential conservation easement at Trump’s Seven Springs property and at the Briarcliff Manor development at Trump’s Westchester County golf course in New York.  

The exchange was another attempt by the attorney general’s office to undercut claims from the former president’s son that he was not involved with his father’s personal financial statements. 

Amer cited a Seven Springs valuation calculated in Trump Organization controller Jeff McConney’s supporting spreadsheet for Donald Trump’s 2014 financial statement. McConney, a co-defendant, noted a conversation with Eric Trump after he would have received the appraiser’s value of the property at no more than $50 million.

“I already told you I did not provide values. I see nothing wrong with the values. But I did not provide them. I testified pretty extensively to that,” Eric Trump said on the stand. 

Amer asked him if he ever shared the appraiser’s valuation with McConney that year. “No I did not, I would have never thought to because I didn’t work on this document,” he responded.  

Email records shown in court Thursday suggested Eric Trump was aware of the $45 million value Cushman & Wakefield appraiser David McArdle offered for the Briaricliff Manor development in 2015, which turned out to be $58 million less than what was reported on his father’s financial statements from 2013 to 2018, according to the attorney general's complaint. 

Amer pushed Eric Trump to acknowledge he testified incorrectly in his deposition when he said he wasn’t involved in the appraisal process for Briarcliff Manor, pointing to emails and phone calls about it. 

After a lengthy exchange, Eric Trump said he stood by his testimony that he had limited involvement. 

“I was clearly involved, but to a very small point -- and I think I was very clear I had very limited memory of Mr. McArdle,” he added. “I see your emails, absolutely. I made a couple calls.” 

Eric Trump will return Friday to continue testifying in the civil fraud trial against him, his family and their company as court has concluded for the day. 

Former President Donald Trump's son was pressed by Assistant Attorney General Andrew Amer about his involvement with the financial documents at the heart of the case.

Eric Trump’s brother, Donald Trump Jr., wrapped up his testimony Thursday morning. He testified for approximately 3 hours over two days.

The two adult sons of former President Donald Trump are executive vice presidents at the Trump Organization and are co-defendants in the trial.

Former President Donald Trump is not happy, to say the least, that his sons Don Jr. and Eric have had to take the stand today in the fraud trial.

“So sad to see my sons being PERSECUTED in a political Witch Hunt by this out of control, publicity seeking, New York State Judge, on a case that should have NEVER been brought,” Trump said on his social media platform Truth Social.

Trump also escalated his ongoing criticism of state Attorney General Letitia James in crude terms.

The former president is expected to testify on Monday.

Eric Trump has tried to to distinguish between the specific statements of financial condition — the personal financial statements at the heart of the civil case against Donald Trump, his sons, and his company – and general financial records for the company.

Discussing an August 2013 email Eric Trump exchanged with former Trump Organization controller Jeff McConney about project information he needed for Donald Trump's annual financial statement, the former president's son maintained there's a distinction.

"I clearly understand that I sent notes to Jeff McConney, I worked with him almost every day," Eric Trump said.

He added: "I don't think it ever registered that it was for a personal statement of financial condition. It was a detail that was irrelevant to me."

Assistant Attorney General Andrew Amer played clips from Eric Trump’s recorded deposition in which he repeatedly made assertions that he didn’t know anything about his father’s financial statements and did not recall ever providing asset information to accounting personnel for the annual statements of financial condition. 

The assistant attorney general then asked Eric Trump to concede now at trial that he knew, at the time of the documented exchanges with McConney, a co-defendant, that the information he provided about assets like Seven Springs and the Doral Golf Resort were for his father's financial statements.

Earlier in the trial, McConney testified that Eric Trump directed him to make certain decisions that led to the inflated valuations of several Trump properties.

Thursday, Eric Trump said “it just didn’t register” that the information was for his father’s personal statements of financial condition. 

Assistant Attorney General Andrew Amer’s examination of Eric Trump grew tense just before the lunch break as the son of the former president grew visibly agitated when pressed about his understanding of his father’s financial statements that were used to support real estate transactions. 

Amer used a series of emails dating as far back as 2010 and phone conversations to argue that Eric Trump was familiar with the statements, contradicting his testimony. 

For instance, there was a series of February 2012 emails regarding the purchase of a golf club in Charlotte, North Carolina, which referenced a club board member reviewing personal financial statements at the Trump Organization's New York office to ensure the club board of the company's ability to run the club. In the email, Eric Trump expressed his concern over the confidentiality of the financial information to the board member. 

Amer pushed Eric Trump to acknowledge that, based on the written exchange, he must have known by 2012 that his father had personal financial statements used to support real estate transactions. Eric Trump asserted that the records shown in court don’t prove that the board member reviewed the statements of financial condition at issue in the civil case. 

“I understand we had financials as a company,” Eric Trump said. “I was not personally aware of the statement of financial condition. I did not work on the of financial condition. I’ve been very, very clear on that.” 

Amer then pointed back to Jeff McConney’s supporting data spreadsheet valuing Seven Springs, suggesting Eric Trump must have known about his father’s financial statements by the time that spreadsheet was created later that year. (McConney is a co-defendant.)

Amer also showed the court an email dated August 20, 2013, that former controller Jeff McConney sent Eric Trump expressly asking for help to value Seven Springs on his father’s annual financial statement. McConney also attached the supporting data spreadsheet for the previous year’s statement detailing the Seven Springs valuation including the note about a conversation with Eric in 2012. 

Still, Eric Trump sought to distance himself from the statement, suggesting his input to McConney was related to plans for land development and not the values ascribed to the property on the spreadsheet. 

CNN reporter explains the moment:

Assistant attorney general Andrew Amer quickly got to the heart of the civil fraud case once Donald Trump's son Eric Trump took the stand, asking him about his knowledge of his father’s financial statements

Former Trump Org. Controller Jeffrey McConney, a co-defendant, notated two phone calls with Eric Trump in support of the valuation for the Seven Springs property in Westchester County, New York, which McConney included in his data for the 2013 financial statement.

Eric Trump said he didn’t’ remember the calls, but also said he doesn’t have a reason to doubt they happened if McConney wrote it in the spreadsheet. He added that he didn’t work on his father’s statement of financial condition.

“People ask me questions all the time but I never worked on the statement of financial condition,” Eric Trump said.

“I never worked on it at the time, and I didn't know anything about it really until this case came into fruition," he added.

Eric Trump confirmed he ran the daily operations of the Trump Organization with his brother Donald Jr. and chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg when his father became president in 2017.

Donald Trump Jr. stopped to speak to reporters as he departed the courthouse after wrapping his testimony in the New York civil fraud trial.

“I think it went really well, if we were actually dealing with logic and reason the way business is conducted,” he said, adding that “unfortunately the AG has brought forth a case that is purely a political persecution.”

He claimed that his family has been unfairly targeted and the trial is a scary precedent for New York.

His testimony ended Thursday after approximately 3 hours over two days.

Trump Jr. repeatedly said in his testimony that he relied on his accountants and was not involved with the preparations of financial statements for his father, even though he signed them as a trustee of the former president's trust.

Trump's adult sons are accused in the lawsuit of knowingly participating in a scheme to inflate their father’s net worth to obtain financial benefits like better loan and insurance policy terms.