New York Attorney General fires back at Trump’s defense of financial statements

This past Wednesday, New York’s attorney general jumped on former President Donald Trump’s defense of company financial statements, saying that the previously issued five-page statement contradicted earlier court filings.

Attorney General Letitia James is currently heading up a probe into whether the Trumps inflated real estate values in order to secure bank loans and reduced values to hedge tax bills. 

“It is not unusual for parties to a legal proceeding to disagree about the facts,” said the attorney general’s office in a letter filed in New York state court. “But it is truly rare for a party to publicly disagree with statements submitted by his own attorneys in a signed pleading – let alone one day after the pleading was filed.”

Trump’s attorneys have continually noted that he did not have enough information to respond to allegations of inaccurate valuations, but the former president’s five-page statement dove into detail regarding possible discrepancies, leading readers to believe he had more knowledge than his lawyers claimed.

His personally issued statement disparaged the attorney general and other state officials, saying the investigation was a political and racist attack.

“Remember when the attorney general or District Attorney say they think my financial statements may be high, I don’t even include these branding numbers in them, which is far more than any discrepancy they may have,” the former president wrote.” 

On Monday, the attorney general’s office released to the public a February 9 letter from Trump’s longtime accountant, Mazars, which indicated that the Trump Organization’s financial statements for 2011 through 2020 should not be relied upon and that it would no longer do work for the former president’s New York-based real estate corporation.

James is currently looking or testimony from Trump as well as two of his adult children, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump, as information for her civil probe of the company’s practices in business.