By Jack Queen
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Donald Trump “arbitrarily” inflated the value of his real estate assets in order to secure favorable insurance premiums, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen testified at the former president’s civil fraud case.
Cohen, who cut ties with the former U.S. president five years ago, is now a key witness in a case brought by Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James alleging Trump inflated the value of his family companies’ properties. The case threatens to break up Trump’s business empire.
Cohen testified that Trump instructed him to “reverse-engineer” the values of many of the Trump Organization’s holdings so that the company’s financial statements would show the assets “had extremely high values with low liabilities in order to secure better insurance premiums.”
The value of the company’s holdings would be “whatever number Mr. Trump told us,” Cohen said in brief testimony before the trial’s lunch break. The trial is set to resume at 2:15 p.m. EDT (1815 GMT).
After the trial broke, Trump told reporters he was “not worried at all” about Cohen’s testimony.
Colleen Faherty, a lawyer for the attorney general’s office, began her questioning of Cohen by reviewing his criminal history. Cohen in 2018 pleaded guilty to a campaign finance violation and lying to Congress during a separate probe of Trump’s business dealings with Russia.
“I did that at the direction of, in concert with and for the benefit of Donald Trump,” Cohen said on the stand, referring to his false testimony to Congress.
Trump leaned back in his chair with his arms folded and intently watched Cohen on the stand, occasionally whispering to his lawyers.
Faherty’s early questioning appeared geared toward heading off attacks by Trump’s lawyers on Cohen’s credibility.
Earlier on Tuesday, Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, called Cohen a “liar.”
“He’s a proven liar, as you know, a felon,” Trump told reporters before entering the courtroom, referring to Cohen. “We did nothing wrong and that’s the truth.”
Cohen, who once said he would “take a bullet” for Trump, began a three-year prison sentence in 2019 but was released to home confinement the following year during the coronavirus pandemic.
Cohen’s testimony during a 2019 Congressional probe of Trump’s finances was the impetus for James’ lawsuit.
Trump has denied wrongdoing and defended the valuations of his properties, saying the case is a “fraud” and a political witch hunt.
He has occasionally appeared in court over the past month, complaining in inflammatory remarks to reporters that it is a distraction from his campaign.
He arrived on Monday following a campaign stop in New Hampshire and just days after being fined $5,000 by Justice Arthur Engoron, the judge overseeing the case, for violating a gag order.
In September before the trial began, Engoron found that Trump fraudulently inflated his net worth and ordered the dissolution of companies that control crown jewels of his real estate portfolio, including Trump Tower in Manhattan. That ruling is on hold while Trump appeals.
The trial largely concerns damages. James is seeking at least $250 million in fines, a permanent ban against Trump and his sons Donald Jr and Eric from running businesses in New York and a five-year commercial real estate ban against Trump and the Trump Organization.
Early in the trial, Engoron barred the parties from speaking publicly about court staff after Trump shared a social media post attacking Engoron’s clerk and identifying her by name.
Trump deleted the post, but last week Engoron revealed that a screenshot had remained live on his campaign site for weeks.
Engoron, who said the lapse appeared to be “inadvertent,” fined Trump $5,000 and warned that future violations would bring “far more severe” sanctions including imprisonment.
James’ civil suit is one of many legal woes Trump faces as he campaigns for the presidency. He has pleaded not guilty to four criminal indictments, including federal cases tied to efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and the removal of government documents from the White House.
(Reporting by Jack Queen; Editing by Noeleen Walder, Nick Zieminski and Lisa Shumaker)
Brought to you by www.srnnews.com
