According to Conservative Brief, the civil fraud case led by New York Attorney General Letitia James against former President Donald Trump faced a challenging turn as Deutsche Bank executive David Williams testified. Williams, who worked on loans Deutsche Bank extended to Trump, acknowledged under questioning from Trump’s legal team that the bank had cut a client’s stated asset value by 50% and still approved a loan, deeming it “atypical, but not entirely unusual.” The case alleges Trump inflated his assets by up to $3.6 billion annually to secure favorable terms from banks and insurers. While seeking $250 million in penalties, James also aims to prevent Trump from conducting further business in New York.
During the testimony, Trump’s attorney, Jesus Suarez, inquired if the bank could make its own judgment based on evaluating the guarantor’s financial condition, to which Williams affirmed it could. The trial is focused on determining whether Trump knowingly used false financial documents, rather than whether Deutsche Bank was a victim. Kevin Wallace, representing James, emphasized that the testimony doesn’t weaken the state’s case, arguing that lying to a bank is well-established as a crime.
Trump, who denies any wrongdoing and asserts that the case is politically motivated, plans to call four current and former Deutsche Bank employees, including former private banker Rosemary Vrablic, as part of his defense. The defense aims to challenge the state’s portrayal of Deutsche Bank as Trump’s primary victim. While James contends Trump defrauded banks, legal expert Andrew McCarthy accused her of inventing a crime to target Trump, noting that if banks were truly defrauded, they would have sought legal remedies, which they didn’t.
McCarthy argued that the case lacks actual victims, as Trump’s alleged fraud didn’t result in financial losses for banks. He criticized James and Judge Arthur Engoron for inventing a significant fraud scheme. The trial’s dynamics include Trump’s efforts to demonstrate the proceedings as partisan, given Engoron’s pre-trial ruling that Trump committed fraud. McCarthy described the situation as “Donald Trump on trial for supposedly inventing wealth that he didn’t have” while elected Democrats James and Engoron “are inventing losses that no one ever suffered.”
