MANHATTAN (CN) — Eric Trump on Thursday tried mounting the same defense his older brother Donald Trump Jr. tried on Wednesday: that he had nothing to do with his father’s financial statements, which a Manhattan judge has already determined had been fraudulently inflated.
Both Trump sons were called to testify in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ $250 million civil fraud lawsuit against the former first family, in which she claims that Donald Trump, his adult sons and other Trump Organization executives pumped up the value of their assets to score better loans and insurance premiums.
“I never had anything to do with the statement of financial condition,” Eric Trump said Thursday. “People ask me questions all the time, but I never worked on the statements of financial condition.”
But unlike his older brother, Eric Trump had a damning paper trail that suggested otherwise. The 39-year-old claimed numerous times during his testimony that he was never involved with compiling his father’s statements of financial condition. At times, he even insinuated that he barely knew what they were.
As it turns out, Trump Organization executives contacted Eric Trump numerous times over the years and specifically asked him for help to compile the reports. The attorney general’s office presented those communications to the court on Thursday.
Andrew Amer from the attorney general’s office led the questioning. He asked Eric Trump if he was ever asked to do a Seven Springs valuation specifically for his father’s financial statements.
“Not to the best of my recollection,” Eric Trump said.
But Amer pulled up a 2013 email from former Trump Organization controller Jeffrey McConney, who asked him to do just that.
“Hi Eric, I’m working on your dad’s annual financial statement,” the email said. “I need to value Seven Springs. Attached please find how we valued it last year.”
Eric Trump, who was noticeably less quippy and quick than his brother Donald Trump Jr., read the email to himself on the witness stand. Amer broke the silence.
“So you did know about your father’s annual financial statement, as of Aug. 20, 2013,” Amer said. “And he attached to this email on the second page an excerpt from his supporting data spreadsheet, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he did,” Eric Trump responded.
“So you’ve actually seen portions of Mr. McConney’s spreadsheet at the time that he was working on it, right?”
Eric Trump, an executive vice president at his family’s namesake company, conceded that he had.
The attorney general’s office went on to display several additional emails from McConney and others that suggested Eric Trump was aware of the financial statements and, in one way or another, helped to prepare them.
“I’m working on the notes to Mr. Trump’s annual financial statement and I’d like to include any major construction work that was started, completed, contemplated at our golf courses during last year,” one from McConney said.
Another read, “Eric, we’re working on your dad’s financial statement. I’ve attached the footnotes relating to the three European clubs… I wanted to ask you if there is anything you wanted to add to or expand on in the footnotes.”
Eric Trump eventually admitted that he knew more about the financial documents than he'd initially claimed on Thursday. But he still refused to concede that he'd contributed to them in any meaningful way.
After showing the emails, Amer asked if it was now fair to say that Eric Trump was “very familiar” with the documents.
“No, I was not very familiar with my father’s financial statement,” Eric Trump said.
But things got even messier for the middle Trump son when the attorney general’s office played clips from his deposition that seemed to contradict his Thursday testimony. In them, Eric Trump claimed the financial statements were something he “knew virtually nothing about” and “didn’t work on, didn’t see.”
“I know nothing about the statements of financial condition,” he said in the tape. “It’s just not what I did.”
When asked about his deposition Eric Trump clarified that he was merely providing information to his peers. He claimed he never assumed that data would be used in his father’s financial statements.
“People ask me questions all the time,” he said earlier in his testimony.
But several of the emails referenced using the information for the statements of financial condition, specifically.
“I just don’t think that would have registered,” Eric Trump said.
Eric Trump took the stand on Thursday morning after his older brother Donald Trump Jr. wrapped up his direct examination that started a day prior.
Contrary to Donald Trump Jr., who was lighthearted and quick on the stand, Eric Trump was serious and long-winded in his answers. This drew the ire from the prosecutors and the judge, who repeatedly had to drag one-word answers out of him.
At times, Eric Trump became irate, raising his voice in response to several of Amer's questions.
But at the very end of the day, it was the judge who was raising his voice, after Trump’s lead attorney Chris Kise apparently made a comment about his clerk.
It wasn’t immediately clear what Kise had said to prompt such a reaction. But the judge didn’t pull punches when addressing the defense attorney.
“Sometimes I think there’s a bit of misogyny in you referring to my principal law clerk,” Judge Arthur Engoron said.
Trump’s lawyers have repeatedly complained about the conduct of Engoron’s clerk, who they seem to believe is prejudiced against their case. Earlier this month, Engoron issued a gag order banning attacks on his staff after Donald Trump went after her on social media.
“If there’s any further reference to anyone on my staff... I will consider expanding the gag order to include the attorneys, including yourself,” Engoron told Kise.
Kise took issue with the judge’s comments, and accused the clerk of being biased against the defense.
“I’m not a misogynist,” Kise added. “I have a 17-year-old daughter.”
Donald Trump was absent from court this week, but he continued to post on Truth Social as his two eldest sons testified.
“So sad to see my sons being PERSECUTED in a political Witch Hunt by this out of control, publicity seeking, New York State Judge, on a case that should have NEVER been brought,” Trump said in the post. “Legal Scholars Scream Disgrace!”
Eric Trump will continue his testimony on Friday. His father will be the next witness, and is slated to take the stand on Monday.
Follow @Uebey
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
