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Donald Trump’s eldest son hailed the “sexiness” of his father’s properties after returning to the stand at the $250m fraud trial over the former president’s real estate empire.
Lawyers for the Trump Organisation summoned Donald Trump jnr at the start of the seventh week of the New York civil trial.
The New York attorney general’s office is suing Donald Trump, his adult sons and other executives at the Trump Organisation for inflating the value of assets on financial statements.
During the hearing, Donald Trump jnr showered praise on his father, who was not present in court on Monday.
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The former president “has been good at finding value, doing something differently” and identifying “sexiness within a real estate project”, he said.
This helped the company attract licensing deals with other developers who wanted to emulate his style, he suggested, adding that his father had “built some of the most incredible assets in the world”.
Lawyers’ for the attorney general’s office objected to the line of questioning as irrelevant, but Justice Arthur Engoron disagreed.
“Let him go ahead and talk about how great the Trump Organisation is,” said Judge Engoron, who has defended himself during the trial from allegations of bias from Mr Trump and his lawyers.
Mr Trump faces a fine of at least $250m if found guilty at the end of the trial. Judge Engoron has already ruled Mr Trump should have his business licenses revoked for fraud, although the ruling is going through an appellate court.
The former president and three of his children – Donald jnr, Eric and Ivanka – have already been summoned to give evidence at trial by lawyers for the New York attorney general. They rested their case after Ivanka Trump testified last Wednesday.
[ Trump’s sons say they weren’t aware of fraud at former president’s company ]
Now defence lawyers are working through their own witness list.
While Donald jnr and Eric are executive vice-presidents at the Trump Organisation and named defendants alongside their father, Ivanka left the business in 2017 to serve in the White House, and is not a defendant.
In court Mr Trump jnr described himself as the “big-picture deals guy”, while his brother was said to be involved in the day-to-day operations of the family business. Both brothers are “much more responsible than prior to 2017″, when their father assumed the presidency, he said.
Since 2021, however, when his father left office, he “could get involved, and he chooses to, on certain things”, the eldest Trump son said.
During his first appearance at the trial, Mr Trump jnr had sought to distance himself from financial statements at the heart of the trial. “The accountants worked on it,” he told the court.
During defiant and rambling testimony last week, Mr Trump acknowledged inaccuracies on his financial statements but said the discrepancies were not relevant to the banks that used them to price his loans.
Donald Trump faces a raft of legal troubles as he campaigns to challenge Democratic president Joe Biden in the 2024 election, though none have diminished his commanding lead over Republican rivals.
He is a defendant in four criminal trials, including two stemming from his attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss. He has pleaded not guilty in all four cases. - Guardian/Reuters