New York attorney general releases evidence on Trump's shady business
practices

New York Attorney General Letitia James has responded to attempts by
Donald Trump and the adult children of his first marriage to defy
subpoenas in her investigation of the Trump Organization�s financial
practices, and she did not come to play. The new filings provide the most
detailed view yet of an investigation that has largely happened without
public showboating or extensive leaks.

In two lengthy documents�one explaining why the Trumps should be legally
compelled to testify and another detailing relevant facts uncovered by the
investigation to date�James lays out evidence for the Trump Organization
having used �fraudulent or misleading� asset valuations to maneuver for
the best possible loans or tax assessments, and for the specific
involvement of Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Ivanka Trump. Eric
Trump has already been deposed in the investigation after his own efforts
to refuse failed.

For each of the Trumps in question, the attorney general�s filings detail
a series of documents they signed and phone calls or meetings they
participated in in which misleading or fraudulent valuations were attached
to properties, loans were lobbied for, or tax benefits were obtained.
Their testimony is therefore relevant to a legitimate investigation, the
documents show�not the politically motivated witch hunt the Trumps have
alleged in their efforts to avoid testifying.

But the really fun stuff comes in the supplemental verified petition
laying out some of the factual basis for the investigation. A lot of it is
creative bookkeeping�and some of it is close to home. As in, Trump
inflated the size and worth of his own apartment in Trump Tower. The
apartment is an extremely impressive 10,996 square feet, but that wasn�t
enough for Trump, who claimed it was 30,000 square feet, and reported its
value on that basis in official documents. Allen Weisselberg, the chief
financial officer of the Trump Organization, conceded that this inflated
the property�s value by $200 million, �give or take.�

Trust Donald Trump to lie about how big his house is. It stands to reason,
though. We already knew he lies about the size of everything else.

The Trumps also repeatedly offered financial valuations for Trump and his
company and then separate estimates of the brand value of the Trump name �
without admitting that the financial valuation that was not supposed to
include brand value actually did include it. That inflated what was
supposed to be a straightforward assessment of how much his properties
were worth, and then added a separate statement about the brand value that
had already been included, double counting the most nebulous and
questionable part of the value to begin with.

Between 2004 and 2014, Trump�s claims about the worth of his Seven Springs
property rose from $80 million to $291 million, an inflation that
�includes the full amount that would be generated from the sale of the
non-existent homes without taking into account the years it would take to
construct infrastructure, build homes, obtain necessary approvals, and
sell the number of homes identified in the supporting data.�

Valuations for Trump�s Westchester golf club were done on the basis of a
specific number of memberships being sold with a $150,000 initiation fee
even as memberships were actually being sold with no initiation fee.

It goes on, for more than 100 pages of evidence filed to show why the
attorney general�s office should be allowed to compel the Trumps to
testify, thereby potentially getting more evidence. This isn�t just for
Donald Trump bragging about his own inflated worth in magazine interviews.
It�s information his company prepared for the purpose of getting loans,
insuring properties, and getting tax benefits. Trump can lie about his net
worth all he wants to reporters, but when he does it in official documents
for the purposes of getting financial benefit, that�s where it can cause
problems. Letitia James is not playing around, and these filings show she
already has a lot to work with�but that doesn�t mean that Donald, Don Jr.,
and Ivanka get to evade testimony.