(New York Post) Donald Trump pulled a piece of paper out of his suit jacket during testimony in Manhattan court Monday — claiming it would completely clear his name in the $250 million civil fraud case against him and asking to show it to the judge.
The former president, 77, was apparently requesting to show both the judge and a prosecutor a disclaimer clause from a financial statement on which New York Attorney General Letitia James has accused him of lying in her lawsuit.
As he testified at trial in the suit, Trump held the document up and asked if the judge would “like to have it.”
Later, the real estate tycoon said: “I would love to read this, Your Honor, if I could?”
“Not at this point, not at this point,” replied Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron — who is deciding the non-jury case that threatens Trump’s New York real estate empire.
“I’m shocked,” Trump responded.
One of Trump’s main defenses during his testimony revolved around the annual statements of financial condition on which James claims he lied from 2011 through 2021, inflating his assets by billions a year for better loan and insurance terms.
Donald Trump pulled out a piece of paper from his suit jacket while he was testifying, saying it would clear him in a fraud suit.Steven Hirsch
Trump claimed that a disclaimer clause meant that he wasn’t liable for any inaccuracies the documents might contain — though Engoron, in a bombshell ruling before the trial began last month, shot down that particular defense argument.
“I think that the statements of financial conditions were very good, were actually somewhat conservative, and they were totally protected, and so was I, by the disclaimer clause,” Trump insisted from the witness stand Monday afternoon.
The yearly statements contained a section saying that Trump promised to provide a “fair representation” of the financial filings in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles.
Engoron wrote in his Sept. 26 decision that the disclaimers “do no insulate defendants from liability” — and added that they actually even “put the onus for accuracy squarely on defendants’ shoulders.”
On Monday, referring to the disclaimer clause, the judge told Trump to “read about my opinion — for the first time, I guess.”
The debate over the clause prompted Trump to explode on the stand and lash out at the judge and the AG.
“He called me a fraud and he didn’t know anything about me!” yelled Trump, while pointing at the judge.
“The fraud is on the court and not on me … the fraud is on her!”
He then called James, who sat calmly in the front row, a “political hack.”
Trump claimed that a disclaimer clause on his statements of financial condition — at the heart of the fraud case — cleared him of inaccuracies in the documents.
Trump used myriad other arguments to combat the AG’s claims against him, including trying to downplay the importance of the yearly statements.
He claimed that banks didn’t actually rely on financial statements when considering whether to lend him money — instead placing more importance on the terms of the deal or the location of the property for which he was securing financing.
“They were not really documents that the banks paid much attention to,” he testified.
