Trump Org: NY attorney general’s office says it has identified ‘misleading
In a court filing late Tuesday, investigators stated the office “intends to make a final determination about who is responsible for those misstatements and omissions,” adding that “OAG requires the testimony and evidence sought herein to determine which Trump Organization employees and affiliates — and which other entities and individuals — may have assisted the Trump Organization and Mr. Trump in making, or may have relevant knowledge about, the misstatements and omissions at issue.”
They write that “witnesses closest to the top of the Trump Organization have asserted their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination. Certain others have professed faulty memories or asserted that they were following instruction from more senior employees.”
“But Mr. Trump’s actual knowledge of — and intention to make — the numerous misstatements and omissions made by him or on his behalf are essential components to resolving OAG’s investigation in an appropriate and just manner,” the filing states. “Likewise, Donald Trump, Jr. and Ivanka Trump worked as agents of Mr. Trump, acted on their own behalves, and supervised others in connection with the transactions at issue here; their testimony is necessary for appropriate resolution of OAG’s investigation as well.”
CNN has reached out to the Trump Organization and representatives for the Trumps for comment.
Ivanka Trump was a key liaison with lender Deutsche Bank, while Donald Trump Jr. was involved in several properties, including 40 Wall Street, and certified the accuracy of the financial statements from 2017 forward, the attorney general’s office said.
In lengthy court filings, investigators said that about a dozen current and former Trump Organization employees have testified and that Trump personally authorized the production of his tax returns.
“In light of the pervasive and repeated nature of the misstatements and omissions, it appears that the valuations in the Statements were generally inflated as part of a pattern to suggest that Mr. Trump’s net worth was higher than it otherwise would have appeared,” the investigators wrote.
Specifically, the New York attorney general’s office said it is zeroing in on several specific alleged misstatements including:
- The size of Trump’s Trump Tower penthouse;
- Miscategorized assets outside Trump’s or the Trump Organization’s control as “cash,” thereby overstating his liquidity;
- Misstated the process by which Trump or his associates reached valuations, including deviations from generally accepted accounting principles in ways that the statements did not disclose;
- Failed to use fundamental techniques of valuation, like discounting future revenues and expenses to their present value, or choosing as “comparables” only similar properties in order to impute valuations from public sales data;
- Misstated the purported involvement of “outside professionals” in reaching the valuations; and
- Failed to advise that certain valuation amounts were inflated by…
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