NY Attorney General James Files Motion Revealing Evidence of Trump Organization Fraud

New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a motion to compel Donald Trump and his two eldest children (Ivanka and Donald Jr.) to appear for depositions and provide documents, publicly revealing for the first time that her three-year investigation had “uncovered significant evidence that suggests Donald J. Trump and the Trump Organization falsely and fraudulently valued multiple assets and misrepresented those values to financial institutions for economic benefit.” This court filing marked a critical escalation in the investigation that began in March 2019, transforming it from a confidential probe into a public legal battle with clear findings of systematic fraud. The motion detailed specific examples of asset valuation manipulation that would become central to the eventual $250 million lawsuit filed eight months later.

The preliminary evidence revealed a decades-long pattern of inflating property values to obtain favorable loans and insurance terms, while simultaneously deflating valuations for tax purposes. Key findings included the Trump Tower penthouse triplex, which Trump claimed was 30,000 square feet (valuing it at $327 million) when it was actually 10,996 square feet—a tripling of the actual size. Mar-a-Lago was valued as high as $739 million in financial statements based on the premise it could be developed and sold for residential use, despite Trump having signed deeds donating his residential development rights and restricting the property to club use only. The true value was approximately $75 million, representing a $664 million overvaluation. These weren’t minor accounting errors but systematic, calculated misrepresentations designed to deceive financial institutions.

Depositions and Fifth Amendment

Eric Trump had already been deposed in October 2020, invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination over 500 times. CFO Allen Weisselberg similarly invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 500 times during his deposition. The January 2022 motion to compel sought to force Trump himself, along with Ivanka and Donald Jr., to sit for depositions—a move the Trump Organization fiercely resisted. In February 2022, Judge Arthur Engoron ruled in favor of James’s subpoenas, rejecting Trump’s attempts to avoid testimony. When Trump failed to comply with document production requirements, he was held in contempt of court in April 2022 and fined $110,000, demonstrating the Trump Organization’s pattern of obstruction even when facing judicial orders.

The evidence suggested not just carelessness but deliberate fraud. Weisselberg made demonstrably false statements in a July 2020 deposition about the Trump Tower triplex, denying knowledge of size discrepancies despite being the CFO who prepared the financial statements. The investigation revealed that Trump Organization executives were fully aware they were providing false valuations to banks and insurers, creating significant legal exposure for potential bank fraud, insurance fraud, and tax fraud charges.

Significance

This court filing transformed the investigation from speculative to evidential, publicly establishing that prosecutors had uncovered concrete proof of fraud rather than mere suspicions. By naming specific properties and quantifying the scale of overvaluations—$664 million for Mar-a-Lago alone—James demonstrated the systematic nature of the fraud and its massive scope. The motion to compel depositions signaled that the investigation was moving toward prosecution, setting up the September 2022 lawsuit and the eventual February 2024 judgment of $454 million (with interest). The evidence presented in this filing contradicted Trump’s repeated claims that his financial statements included disclaimers and that banks did their own due diligence—banks testified they relied on the representations Trump provided. This filing marked the moment when Trump’s business practices, long protected by NDAs and settlements, became subject to public legal scrutiny with documented evidence of decades of fraud.