MANHATTAN (CN) — Donald Trump’s attorneys asked a Manhattan court on Tuesday to immediately end the $250 million civil fraud trial against the former president following a full day of testimony from a banking executive involved in several major Trump Organization loans.
“I’m just going to renew our motion for a directed verdict,” Trump’s lead attorney Chris Kise said. “This witness has again testified the bank conducted its own due diligence.”
Kise claimed that the day’s testimony from David Williams, a managing director at Deutsche Bank, proved that the Trump Organization didn’t benefit from grossly inflating its asset values on annual financial statements. Williams said Tuesday that Deutsche Bank made its own judgments when deciding to issue loans to Trump, and didn’t necessarily take his financial documents at face value.
The judge seemed skeptical, however.
“I would point out that the mere fact that the lenders were happy doesn't mean that the statute wasn’t violated, doesn't mean that the other statutes weren’t violated,” Judge Arthur Engoron said.
Prior to the bench trial, Engoron had already ruled Trump and his co-defendants had committed fraud by inflating the value of assets on annual statements of financial condition, documents which the Trump Organization used to secure loans and insurance for the company.
Since then, Trump’s lawyers have been arguing that the defendants never actually benefited from that asset inflation since banks and insurance brokers do their “own due diligence” prior to major business transactions.
Tuesday marked the third time the defense attorneys asked Engoron for a directed verdict to end the trial then and there. They had previously made two similar requests based on testimony from ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, both of which Engoron emphatically denied.
In his latest effort, Kise claimed that Trump was still “overqualified” for the Deutsche Bank loans, absolving him of fraud since the bank had “no problem” with Trump overstating his wealth.
“There can be no ill-gotten gains, there can be no disgorgement,” Kise said. “This is now the second bank witness who signed off on these loans to testify that there was no problem at any point with these loans.”
Lawyers for the attorney general’s office, who brought the case against the former president last year, mocked Kise’s longshot ask.
“I don’t know what the point of this motion was,” Kevin Wallace of the attorney general’s office said flatly. “The witness did not say that none of this matters. The witness said actually that they expect their clients to tell the truth, and not lie, and not submit fraudulent statements.”
Wallace added that the state hadn't even accused the defendants of lying to Deutsche Bank about the loans; rather, it accused them of creating fraudulent financial statements, which were then used in business transactions.
Kise countered that “fluctuations” with the value of assets are quite normal and not indicative of fraud, according to Williams’ testimony that day.
“If everyone is of the view that evidence doesn't matter, then maybe I’m wasting my time,” Kise added. “Maybe I’m wasting my breath … If that is where we are, then I don't know what country we landed in in the state of New York.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Williams claimed that Deutsche Bank does expect clients-provided information “to be accurate.”
“At the same time, it’s not industry standard for these financial statements to be audited," he added.
Williams walked the court through the “due diligence” that Deutsche Bank conducted prior to issuing Donald Trump major loans. Notably, he said that the bank performed its own valuations on some of Trump’s biggest assets, finding them to be less valuable than Trump claimed them to be on his financial statements.
As such, he claimed that the bank was “certainly” capable of making its own assessment of Trump’s wealth, rather than taking him for his word.
Williams even said that large discrepancies were sometimes “expected.” In 2013, Trump claimed his net worth to be $4.98 billion. Deutsche Bank estimated it to be much less at approximately $2.65 billion.
Still, Williams said this didn’t necessarily raise any red flags. Even at the lower estimate, Williams said Trump still met the requirements for Deutsche Bank’s loans at the time.
“[It’s] not unusual for a client’s financial statements to be adjusted to this level, to this extent,” Williams said.
More Deutsche Bank executives are expected to testify this week as the defense continues to make its case against the state. Trump is expected back at the stand on Dec. 11, barring scheduling changes or an unexpected directed verdict from the judge.
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