Twenty years ago, when Donald Trump introduced himself to the American people from the back of a limousine passing through New York City, he told a simple tale of triumph disguised as a confession.
“About 13 years ago I was in serious trouble. I was billions of dollars in debt,” he said in the opening scene of the reality TV show The Apprentice, which premiered in January 2004. “But I persevered and made it in the big leagues.”
Relating to: Former Watergate prosecutor says he toasted Trump’s New York fraud case
The show offered Americans the opportunity to see Trump as he sees himself: a successful real estate mogul with towering skyscrapers, expansive golf courses and a taste for brokering a good deal. A man who found salvation through hard work, an embodiment of the American dream, crowned with a strawberry yellow scent.
Two decades later, Trump’s real estate empire is in danger. For 11 weeks, the inner workings of his company were discussed in a fraud case in New York. A judge had already ruled that Trump committed fraud. He will decide on sentencing later this year.
Trump’s companies could lose their New York licenses, making it nearly impossible for Trump to run his real estate business. He also faces a huge fine: State lawyers filed a $370 million criminal lawsuit on Friday; This could force the company to sell its properties.
At this point, prosecutors and Trump’s defense team rested their case. Closing arguments are scheduled for Thursday.
The last three months have given Trump and his lawyers a chance to defend him in court against accusations that he deliberately exaggerated his net worth in government documents. Instead, they sought to preserve the glowing portrait Trump has painted over the past 40 years. The story that brought fame to Trump and ultimately the White House could lead to the downfall of his company.
Deja vu in court
A harsh pretrial summary judgment turned the trial into an uphill battle for Trump’s team. In the decision, published on September 26, less than a week before the start of the trial, it was stated that the documents presented by prosecutors showed that Trump committed fraud. The decision is currently being reviewed by an appeals court, but if approved, Trump would lose his business licenses and severely restrict his real estate business in New York.
The decision was supposed to significantly narrow the scope of the trial. Instead, Trump and his team relied on many of the arguments Judge Arthur Engoron had already rebutted in his ruling.
Trump’s lawyers argued that if the numbers in government documents were inaccurate, it was the fault of the Trump Organization’s former accounting firm, Mazars USA.
Donald Trump Jr., one of the defendants in the case, said in his statement, “Every decision I made was based on all the information I received from Mazars.”
When asked whether it was the Trump Organization’s or Mazars’ job to ensure the documents were accurate, Trump emphasized that the firm was “paid a lot of money to do this job.”
But in his pre-trial ruling, Engoron noted that Mazars had filed a disclaimer regarding statements stating that Trump was responsible for “fair representation” in the financial disclosure.
“Mazars’ disclaimers place the burden of accuracy squarely on the defendants’ shoulders,” Engoron wrote.
In and out of the courtroom, Trump also sought to argue the justification of the “worthless clause,” a disclaimer in financial documents that signals to lenders that estimates in financial documents are “worthless.”
In its pre-trial decision, Engoron again considered the worthless substance claim to be moot.
“The ‘worthless clause’ does not say what the defendants say, does not rise to the level of an enforceable disclaimer, and cannot be used to isolate fraud,” Engoron wrote.
Will Thomas, a business law professor at the University of Michigan, said Trump’s team presented arguments largely “about the court misunderstanding and misunderstanding summary judgment.”
“It’s not like they’re completely unrelated, but I don’t suspect that any of them really move the needle in any meaningful way,” he said of Trump.
What didn’t help Trump was the evasiveness with which he and other Trump Organization executives, including his two adult sons, showed at the podium when confronted with documents suggesting they were aware their valuations were inflated.
Engoron will have wide leeway in interpreting the evasion on the bench, Thomas said. If Trump objects, the appeals court “can review the statute and the judicial opinions; they can evaluate whether the trial court applied the law correctly,” he said.
“But they’re not in the courtroom. They can’t judge all those intangible things that come with living testimony. Therefore, the standards of examination, especially ‘Which witnesses will I trust?’ When it comes to something like this, it makes it really difficult to overturn factual findings,” Thomas said.
‘A world of fantasy’
One of the most critical points Engoron made in his pre-trial ruling outlined what he called Trump’s “fantasy world” and said was based on “bogus arguments.”
“In the defendants’ world: rent-regulated apartments are worth the same as unregulated apartments; Restricted land has the same value as unrestricted land; restrictions can evaporate into thin air… and square meters [is] subjective,” he wrote. “This is a dream world, not the real world.”
Here, Engoron essentially eliminated the claim that real estate valuation is an “art” free of laws and restrictions.
But Trump and his team continued to defend the idea that Trump had the right to determine the value of his properties. While he insisted on the stand that Mar-a-Lago was worth at least $1 billion, Palm Beach valued the property at between $18 million and $27 million.
Trump and his family have been dismissive of the role regulatory restrictions play in valuations. Mar-a-Lago’s deed, for example, says Trump will not convert the club into a private residence. Trump said converting the office building at 40 Wall Street into apartment units was “an absolutely perfect use for this building,” though Trump had given up the rights to convert it into condominiums in the building’s land lease agreement.
Trump and his lawyers argued that the former president could look at a building and decide its value. “All you have to do is look at the picture of the building and say, ‘That building,'” Trump said of the Trump office building at 40 Wall Street while on the witness stand in early November. said. “You just look at it and say, ‘This is worth a lot more than $550 million.'”
Michael D’Antonio, Trump biographer and author of The Truth About Trump, said Trump’s success in business has always been a central element of his identity, even if he knows it’s based on exaggerations.
“A salesman must love his product in order to sell it, and he is committed to that principle,” D’Antonio said. “He assumed that finance and business are rigged games, so he assumes politics is a rigged game too. This belief justified doing anything.”
Trump has always surrounded himself with people who will defend the ideals he has set for himself. In this hearing, Trump’s lawyers were always ready to spoil him with compliments while defending him, assuring him of his wealth and power.
Trump’s lead attorney, Christopher Kise, said in his opening statement that Trump “made billions of dollars building one of the most successful real estate empires in the world.” Trump’s other lawyer, Alina Habba, also repeated Trump’s claim that Mar-a-Lago is worth at least $1 billion.
“I can assure you that there is an individual out there who will purchase this property, this magnificent property, for well over a billion dollars,” he said in his opening statement. “This isn’t fraud, it’s real estate.”
Who makes the final decision?
Rather than seeking vindication in court, Trump and his defense team were often more interested in appealing to another audience: the millions of viewers who watched The Apprentice and saw a wealthy businessman fly over Manhattan in a helicopter bearing his name. Those who believe his story.
Throughout the trial, Trump appeared uninterested in convincing Engoron of his innocence and adopted a strategy of provocation, blasting Engoron and New York attorney general Letitia James on social media, calling the trial a “witch hunt” and condemning the judge. even while on the stand.
“How can you, as the president of the United States, who has done a great job, decide against someone and call him a fraud?” an angry Trump said during his testimony. said. “What you did was a terrible thing. You didn’t know anything about me.”
It was this bravado that helped Trump win millions of viewers on his reality TV show, in the days when he was most associated with the phrase “you’re fired.”
Trump seems to believe that amplifying his story will anger his supporters for the 2024 election, but that doesn’t win him legal points. Ultimately, it may be more important for Trump how voters judge him. His strategy works; Trump leads Republican polls in a field that includes his former allies and followers.
But the courts are watching Trump closely. In addition to the potential loss of his real estate company, Trump also faces the possibility of prison time due to future criminal cases. If the fraud case in New York is any indication so far, the story that launched him to fame may only do so much to save him.