Donald Trump Jr testified for a second day on Thursday, November 2, at the civil fraud trial that threatens the family real estate business, saying that while he signed off on the company's financial statements he relied on the expertise of accountants for their accuracy. Don Jr, 45, was the first member of the Trump family to testify in the case in which the Trump Organization is accused of inflating the value of its assets by billions of dollars to obtain more favorable bank loans and insurance terms.
He was followed on the stand by his younger brother, Eric Trump, 39, and the former president himself may be questioned on Monday, a day shy of the one-year mark before the November 5, 2024, presidential election that he hopes will sweep him back into the White House. Don Jr and Eric Trump are executive vice presidents of the Trump Organization, a sprawling network of companies managing residential buildings, office skyscrapers, luxury hotels and golf courses around the world.
During his second day of testimony in a Manhattan courtroom, Don Jr essentially repeated the line of defense he used the previous day – that the Trump Organization relied on accounting firms to vouch for the information provided to lenders and others. "I relied on the accountants," he said.
Don Jr was asked at one point about a detailed "fact-checking" questionnaire sent to the Trumps by Forbes magazine in 2017 that cast doubt on the fortune of his father, including the purported size of his penthouse apartment in New York's Trump Tower. "Insane amount of stuff there," Don Jr said in an email to other Trump Organization executives. He said he did not recall doing anything further in response to Forbes. The apartment is among the properties the judge in the civil fraud case has already found were falsely overvalued. Its square footage was given as 30,000 square feet when it is actually 10,996 square feet.
The former president's daughter, Ivanka Trump, who left the Trump Organization in 2017 to become a White House advisor to her father, is not a codefendant in the case but has been ordered to testify. She has appealed the subpoena.
If the 77-year-old former president takes the stand it will be the first time he testifies publicly in any of the various civil and criminal cases facing him. The former president and his sons do not risk going to jail in the fraud case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, but face up to $250 million in penalties and potential removal from the management of the family company.
Prior to his son's testimony, Trump lashed out at Judge Arthur Engoron, who has already ruled that Trump, his sons and other senior executives of the Trump Organization committed fraud. In a series of posts on his Truth Social platform, Trump accused the judge of "doing the dirty work for the Democrat Party." "Leave my children alone, Engoron," Trump wrote.
Trump is not required to attend the trial, but he has shown up sporadically, using his appearances to portray himself as the victim of what he claims is a Democratic plot to derail his White House campaign.
The civil fraud trial is one of several legal battles Trump faces as he seeks to recapture the presidency. He is to go on trial in Washington in March for conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and in Florida in May on charges of mishandling top-secret government documents. The twice-impeached former president also faces racketeering charges in Georgia for allegedly conspiring to upend the election results in the southern state after his 2020 defeat by Democrat Joe Biden.