‘I wasn’t involved’: Donald Trump Jr. testifies in civil fraud trial of Trump business empire
He, his father and his brother are all defendants in the New York case.
NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s eldest son and co-chief of his business empire, Donald Trump Jr., denied in court Wednesday that he was involved in preparing financial documents that exaggerated his father’s net worth.
His testimony came in the $250 million civil trial in which both men stand accused of widespread corporate fraud.
New York Attorney General Tish James has accused former President Donald Trump, his adult sons and business associates of submitting fraudulent documents that inflated the value of Trump’s assets in order to obtain favorable terms from insurers and banks.
“I wasn’t involved in the compilation of the statement of financial condition,” Trump Jr. said in response to questioning from a lawyer from James’ office who pressed him on a key 2017 financial statement. That document said it was prepared in consultation with trustees for his father’s revocable trust, one of whom is Trump Jr.
Trump Jr. allowed that he advised the accountants about the value of individual deals that he had worked on, but he said those conversations weren’t for the specific purpose of preparing the statements of financial condition.
“I could have sat there and gone through each of the deals individually … not even knowing that it was for the purpose of this,” he said of the document.
“It doesn’t mean that I used that to put this together,” he said. “They did that,” he said, referring to the accountants.
Though the former president has attended the trial a few days a week since it started at the beginning of October, he wasn’t in the courtroom to see Donald Trump Jr. testify.
During much of his appearance Wednesday, Trump Jr. struck a lighthearted and casual tone, eliciting laughter at times.
“I should have worn makeup,” Trump Jr., wearing a navy suit and bubble-gum pink tie, joked as photographers took pictures of him sitting at the defense table prior to walking to the witness stand.
When the judge urged him to slow the speed of his responses while testifying, he replied, “I apologize, your honor. I moved to Florida, but I kept the New York pace.”
Trump Jr., whose testimony is set to resume Thursday, is the first of three Trump children who are expected to testify. His brother Eric Trump, another co-defendant in the case, is also expected to testify this week. Their sister Ivanka Trump, who was dismissed as a defendant before the trial, is scheduled to testify next week. She has sought to avoid testifying, and is appealing the judge’s ruling last week ordering her to do so.
The former president himself is scheduled to take the stand on Monday.
