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America got its first view of former President Donald Trump standing trial Monday when he sat, stern-faced, in a Manhattan courtroom for the start of civil fraud case against his business empire that could last months and offered a deeper look at the legal drama that could dominate the 2024 election.
In an opening statement, lawyers for New York Attorney General Letitia James said Mr. Trump often manipulated the value of his properties to gain favorable terms on loans and insurance.
“They were lying year after year after year,” said Kevin Wallace, a lawyer in Ms. James’ office, as Mr. Trump sat at the defense table. The former president looked straight ahead, arms crossed, facing away from a screen that showed details of Mr. Wallace’s presentation.
Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, said the valuations were legitimate and part of regular real estate practices, especially for prized “Mona Lisa properties.”
She accused Ms. James of “setting a very dangerous precedent for all business owners in the state of New York.”
Mr. Trump, the GOP front-runner in the 2024 presidential race, has been arraigned in criminal cases from New York to Florida and had to pose for a mugshot in Georgia.
But the opening day of his standoff with Ms. James offered a sneak peek at the long slog of opening statements, evidence presentations and witness testimony that awaits the leading GOP presidential candidate as he juggles next year’s campaign with multiple trials.
Mr. Trump wasted little time in revealing his campaigning-while-litigating strategy. In a series of social media posts and courthouse asides, he unloaded on rival attorneys and Judge Aaron Engoron.
“This is a judge that should be disbarred. This is a judge that should be out of office. This is a judge that some people say could be charged criminally for what he’s doing,” Mr. Trump, visibly angry, said during a break in the courtroom action.
Unlike the looming criminal cases, Mr. Trump’s civil trial will be decided from the bench by the judge, not a jury.
Judge Engoron ruled last week that Mr. Trump was operating in a “fantasy world” and was liable for misrepresenting the value of some of his properties, handing Ms. James an early victory on one of her claims. The trial will proceed on further claims and potential damages that Mr. Trump might owe.
Ms. James’ $250 million lawsuit alleges that the ex-president repeatedly manipulated the value of his properties. For instance, her lawsuit says Mr. Trump inflated the value of his apartment in Trump Tower by listing it as 30,000 square feet, instead of its actual size of 11,000 square feet.
The lawsuit says Mr. Trump valued his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida as high as $739 million, based on the premise that it could be developed and sold for residential use, though the deed had restricted changes to the property and it should have been valued closer to $75 million.
Mr. Trump built his political brand in 2016 on the idea that he was a successful businessman who could run the country in the same manner, making doubts about his business acumen a sore point.
The ex-president took particular exception to Judge Engoron’s reference to an assessment that put Mar-a-Lago’s taxable value around $18 million, a mark far below what the Palm Beach, Florida, property would likely sell for on the market.
Mr. Trump, fuming in Manhattan, accused the Biden administration of pulling the strings from Washington through the federal Department of Justice.
“It all comes down from the DOJ that totally coordinated this in Washington because I’m the leading [Republican] candidate and I’m leading Biden by 10 points,” Mr. Trump said. “And I’m leading the Republicans by 50 and 60 points — they say it’s over. This has to do with election interference, plain and simple.”
Testimony began Monday with Donald Bender, a longtime partner at accounting firm Mazars LLP, describing how he spent 50 to 60 hours a year preparing Mr. Trump’s financial statements.
Mazars cut ties with Mr. Trump last year after Ms. James’ office raised questions about the documents’ reliability.
Mr. Trump left the courthouse for the day claiming he’d scored a victory, pointing to comments that he viewed as Judge Engoron coming around to the defense’s view that most of the suit’s allegations are too old.
The judge suggested that testimony about Mr. Trump’s 2011 financial statement was beyond the legal time limit.
Mr. Wallace, for the attorney general, promised to link it to a more recent loan agreement, but Mr. Trump took the judge’s remarks as an “outstanding” development for him.
Mr. Trump faces trial in the coming months on New York charges of falsifying business records, and in federal cases that accuse him of storing sensitive government documents at his Florida estate and unlawfully conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results. The case in Georgia also pivots on his efforts to overturn his defeat in the last presidential election.
In each case, Mr. Trump has suggested prosecutors or judges are Democrats who are predisposed to attack him. He’s also complained about the political makeup of the potential jury pool.
Mr. Trump said there is “no victim” in the New York civil case and he’s done nothing wrong.
“There was no crime,” he said. “The crime is against me because we have a corrupt district attorney, we have a corrupt attorney general. They’re trying to damage me so that I don’t do as well as I’m doing in the election. Our country has gone to hell.”
Ms. James said Monday her case is solid and that she won an early victory in last week’s ruling.
“No matter how rich or powerful you are, there are not two sets of laws for people in this country,” she said. “The rule of law must apply equally to everyone, and it is my responsibility to make sure that it does.”
Ms. James says Mr. Trump, beyond his famous homes, used accounting tricks to value golf properties and apartments at higher values than what appraisers found or the underlying facts would suggest.
For instance, a 2011 valuation of a Westchester, New York, golf property assumed that new members would pay an initiation fee of nearly $200,000 for each of the 67 unsold memberships, but “many new members in that year paid no initiation fee at all,” the lawsuit says.
A 2012 statement valued a commercial property at 40 Wall Street at $527 million, despite bank-ordered appraisals that put the property closer to $220 million.
A 2012 statement on rent-stabilized apartments at Trump Park Avenue were valued as if they were unrestricted, leading to a nearly $50 million valuation while an appraisal accounting under their stabilized status valued them collectively at only $750,000, the lawsuit says.
• This story is based in part on wire service reports.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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