SIREN — New York AG TISH JAMES announced today that she is filing a civil lawsuit against DONALD TRUMP and his eldest three children, DONALD JR., IVANKA and ERIC, alleging that the Trump Organization engaged in a sprawling campaign of fraudulent business practices, Josh Gerstein, Erin Durkin and Kyle Cheney report.
The allegations:
- “The attorney general’s civil suit alleges decades of deception, including billions of dollars in falsified net worth, as part of an effort to minimize his companies’ tax bills while winning favorable terms from banks and insurance companies,” the trio writes. James: Trump “falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars to unjustly enrich himself and to cheat the system, thereby cheating all of us.”
- James’ suit “relies on a special statute for repeat instances of alleged violations of the law, stemming from real estate transactions.” James: “This conduct cannot be brushed aside and dismissed as some sort of good-faith mistake.”
- An example, via Erin: Trump allegedly falsely claimed his own triplex apartment in Trump Tower was worth $327 million — three times its actual value. “To this date, no apartment in New York City has ever sold for close to that amount,” James said. Trump claimed the apartment was 30,000 square feet when it was actually 11,000.
- The soundbite: “Claiming you have…
