Washington: The New York Attorney-General suing Donald Trump for fraud has claimed the former president inflated his income by up to $US2.2 billion ($3.4 billion) in one year to convince banks to lend him money on more favourable terms.
Letitia James said the lawsuit she filed last year did not need to go to trial in October because there was a “mountain” of evidence.
Former US president Donald Trump will spend most of the next few months in and out of court.Credit: AP
The process, filed in the State Supreme Court in Manhattan, sought a $US250 million judgment and a ban on Trump and his three children doing business in New York.
In court papers made public on Thursday (AEST), James urged Judge Arthur Engoron to issue an immediate verdict endorsing her claim that Trump and his company defrauded banks and business associates by lying on financial statements about his wealth and the value of his assets.
James’s office argued Engoron must only answer whether Trump’s annual financial statements were false or misleading, and whether he and the Trump Organisation used those statements while conducting business transactions.
“The answer to both questions is a resounding ‘yes’ based on the mountain of undisputed evidence”, James’ special litigation counsel Andrew Amer said in a 100-page summary judgment motion.
Therefore, Amer argued, no trial was required to determine that Trump, the Trump Organisation, and other defendants, “presented grossly and materially inflated asset values” in the financial statements and then used those statements “repeatedly in business transactions to defraud banks and insurers”.
“At the end of the day this is a documents case, and the documents leave no shred of doubt that Trump’s (statements of financial condition) do not even remotely reflect the ‘estimated current value’ of his assets as they would trade between well-informed market participants,” Amer wrote.
The civil lawsuit is yet another case in the Republican frontrunner’s long list of trials and legal headaches.