Trump inflated net worth by $2.2 billion, NY attorney general alleges

New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) alleged former President Trump inflated his net worth by as much as $2.2 billion, according to court documents filed Wednesday.

The allegation came as part of James’s lawsuit against Trump, the Trump Organization and two of the former president’s children alleging more than a decade of fraud. 

Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump both currently serve as executive vice presidents at the Trump Organization, playing prominent roles in their father’s business arm. Ivanka Trump was previously included in the lawsuit, but later dismissed from it by a state appeals judge. 

James included the new figure in a court filing urging a judge to partially rule against Trump ahead of the scheduled Oct. 2 trial. 

She alleged that Trump inflated his net worth by hundreds of millions of dollars between 2011 and 2021. In 2014, James accused Trump of exaggerating his net worth by as much as $2.225 billion.

“While this is just the tip of a much larger iceberg of deception Plaintiff is prepared to expose at trial — which would result in carving off billions more from Mr. Trump’s net worth — it is more than sufficient to permit this Court to rule as a matter of law that each [statement of financial conditions] from 2011 to 2021 was false or misleading,” James wrote.

The lawsuit purports that Trump’s company falsely inflated and deflated the value of its assets to pay lower taxes and improve its insurance coverage. James is seeking $250 million in financial penalties, in addition to barring Trump and his children from serving as officers or directors of New York-registered or licensed corporations. 

Attorneys for Trump argued that the “undisputed record” in the case establishes the former president as a “multi-billionaire” presiding over a “wildly successful” international real estate and licensing empire for decades. 

“Yet despite these undisputed facts, and despite herself admitting herein President Trump is a successful billionaire even by her own manipulated standards, the NYAG has spent considerable time and taxpayer dollars chasing after President Trump by wading into wholly private, and successfully consummated, commercial agreements — the provisions of which have been fully satisfied — between highly sophisticated parties,” the joint motion reads. 

Attached to the motion was a transcript of Trump’s more than six-hour deposition with prosecutors in April. 

In the deposition, Trump repeatedly attacked prosecutors, calling the case “ridiculous” and a “disgrace.”

“And it’s a shame that somebody that’s done such a good job, the Convention Center in New York, so many things I did for this City, the job in the West Side of Manhattan, thousands of people employed and now I have to come and justify myself to you,” Trump said.