Eric Trump continues testimony in civil fraud trial

Eric Trump’s two days in court have ended after roughly an hour on the stand Friday.

Speaking to the media outside of the courtroom, he touted the success of his family’s company and decried the trial as a “witch hunt” for “political purposes.”

Next up on the stand is his father, Donald Trump, who on Monday will testify in a historic moment where the former president will be publicly under oath to discuss his business practices (He has previously testified in depositions.)

“The only witness will be Donald J. Trump,” assistant attorney general Andrew Amer said when Judge Arthur Engoron asked who would be testifying when court reconvenes on Monday.

Eric Trump told reporters his father is “fired up” to be coming to New York and testifying.

The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial has expanded the gag order in the trial to extend to Trump’s attorneys after they raised multiple questions about the judge’s communications with his law clerk. 

In a written order Friday, Judge Arthur Engoron prohibited Trump’s attorneys from making any further comments about confidential communications between the judge and his staff inside or outside of the courtroom.

The judge said violating the order would result in “serious sanctions.”

Ivanka Trump withdrew her appeal of a judge’s order requiring her to testify at the civil fraud trial next week after an appellate court refused to pause her testimony. 

Thursday night an appeals court denied Trump’s request to postpone her testimony until her lawyers could make arguments before the panel that she shouldn’t be required to appear. 

Ivanka Trump argued a “hardship” to testify during the school week when she had young children. She also argued that since she is no longer a defendant in the lawsuit and does not live in New York state she shouldn’t be required to appeal. The trial judge previously rejected those arguments. 

In dropping her appeal, her attorney’s said since she is scheduled to testify on Wednesday, before she can make her legal arguments, the appeal is now “moot.” 

Eric Trump, son of former President Donald Trump, right, waits to testify at New York State Supreme Court on Friday, November 3.

Assistant Attorney General Andrew Amer questioned Eric Trump about Mar-A-Lago and it’s tax assessment with the municipality in Florida in 2021 as a commercial property run as a social club — not a private residence like it was valued on Trump’s personal financial statements.

In a 2021 email thread shown in court, an adviser counseled Eric Trump and Allen Weisselberg that reassessing even part of the property that holds Trump’s private home at Mar-a-Lago would increase the taxable assessed value and raise the property taxes.

Eric Trump testified it was his understanding that Mar-A-Lago is private residence that can be sold to an individual.

“We have the absolute zoning right to do so,” he said.

The former president’s son also confirmed it is a social club, but earlier at trial, the attorney general’s office presented a 2005 document in which Donald Trump deeded away his right to use the property for any other purpose other than the social club.

Judge Arthur Engoron said he will issue a written order Friday afternoon on what can and can’t be said during the New York civil fraud trial about his staff after more discussion about the role of his law clerk during the hearing.

Donald Trump’s lawyers and Engoron ended Friday’s court hearing just as it started — arguing about objections over the judge’s law clerk. Engoron said he’ll consider Trump’s team objecting to his communications with his law clerk a standing objection and will continue to do so.

He also asked them to stop talking about it.

“Let’s not belabor this point. There’s no more need to make a record. There’s such a complete record. You’ve made speeches, you’ve made observations,” Engoron said. “What more record do you want?”

Kevin Wallace from the attorney general’s office called Kise’s complaints about the clerk a “side show,” suggesting Trump’s team was “trying to blow up the trial.”

Trump attorney Chris Kise responded by saying that it was important for Trump’s team to be able to raise objections to conduct in the courtroom contemporaneously so they can include it in the court record.

“Whether we will make a motion now or not, that’s something we will determine,” Kise said. “That’s something very different for an appellate record that needs to be complete for appellate purposes.”

Eric Trump, son of former President Donald Trump, second from left, waits to testify at New York State Supreme Court on Friday, November 3.

Assistant Attorney General Andrew Amer continued questioning Eric Trump Friday about his involvement in his father’s financial statements that he signed for.

When Amer showed annual compliance certificates that Eric Trump signed on behalf of his father in 2020 and 2021 for Deutsche Bank loans, the former president’s son said he stands by the financial statements submitted.

“I believe everything in the statements was accurate,” he said, adding that what Deutsche Bank did with the statements was “within their purview.”

Amer asked Trump’s son if he intended for the compliance certificate to be accurate when he submitted the forms to Deutsche Bank.

“I would not sign something that was not accurate,” he added. “I relied on our accounting office. I relied on one of the biggest accounting firms in the country and I relied on a great legal team, and when they gave me comfort that the statement was perfect, I was more than happy to execute it.”

Amer also asked Eric Trump about what happened after New York Attorney General Letitia James announced her investigation into the Trump Organization in 2019.

Eric Trump said there were “thousands of phone calls about the statements of financial condition,” after the attorney general announced her investigation.“There’s no question there were conversations about the statements of financial condition after this action started,” he said.

Friday’s court session in Donald Trump’s New York civil fraud trial began with another extended debate about the role of Judge Arthur Engoron’s principal law clerk.

On Thursday, Engoron and Trump attorney Chris Kise had a tense argument about his clerk in response to criticism of her, prompting Engoron to threaten to extend his gag order barring public commentary on members of his court staff.

Kise picked up the debate Friday morning with a lengthy speech complaining about the clerk, raising an allegation from a right-wing website and claiming that the political bias could be cause for a mistrial.

Engoron defended his rulings and his clerk’s role in the trial, sitting alongside him, saying he believes he is deciding issues in the trial “right down the middle.”

Assistant Attorney General Andrew Amer said if Trump’s team has evidence of extrajudicial conduct that suggests the law clerk is biased then they should go ahead and make a motion. “Making speeches,” he said, was “wasting a lot of time.”

More context: Engoron’s clerk, who sits alongside him on the bench, has played a significant role in the commentary of the trial. After Donald Trump attacked the clerk on social media in the first week of the trial, Engoron imposed his gag order on commentary about his staff. Trump has since been fined twice for violating the gag order, including comments he made to reporters while outside the courtroom last week, which prompted Engoron to briefly put Trump on the stand.

In this courtroom sketch, Eric Trump testifies during the Trump Organization civil fraud trial in New York State Supreme Court on Thursday.

Assistant Attorney General Andrew Amer’s examination of Eric Trump grew tense Thursday as the son of the former president grew visibly agitated when pressed about his understanding of his father’s financial statements that were used to support real estate transactions. 

Amer used a series of emails dating as far back as 2010 and phone conversations to argue that Eric Trump was familiar with the statements, contradicting his testimony. 

For instance, there was a series of February 2012 emails regarding the purchase of a golf club in Charlotte, North Carolina, which referenced a club board member reviewing personal financial statements at the Trump Organization’s New York office to ensure the club board of the company’s ability to run the club. In the email, Eric Trump expressed his concern over the confidentiality of the financial information to the board member. 

Amer pushed Eric Trump to acknowledge that, based on the written exchange, he must have known by 2012 that his father had personal financial statements used to support real estate transactions. Eric Trump asserted that the records shown in court don’t prove that the board member reviewed the statements of financial condition at issue in the civil case. 

“I understand we had financials as a company,” Eric Trump said. “I was not personally aware of the statement of financial condition. I did not work on the of financial condition. I’ve been very, very clear on that.” 

Amer then pointed back to Jeff McConney’s supporting data spreadsheet valuing Seven Springs, suggesting Eric Trump must have known about his father’s financial statements by the time that spreadsheet was created later that year. (McConney is a co-defendant.)

Amer also showed the court an email dated August 20, 2013, that former controller Jeff McConney sent Eric Trump expressly asking for help to value Seven Springs on his father’s annual financial statement. McConney also attached the supporting data spreadsheet for the previous year’s statement detailing the Seven Springs valuation including the note about a conversation with Eric in 2012. 

Still, Eric Trump sought to distance himself from the statement, suggesting his input to McConney was related to plans for land development and not the values ascribed to the property on the spreadsheet. 

Former President Donald Trump's son and co-defendant, Eric Trump, walks to attend the Trump Organization civil fraud trial, in New York State Supreme Court in the Manhattan borough of New York on November 3.

Former President Donald Trump’s adult son, Eric Trump, has arrived at the courthouse in downtown Manhattan ahead of testimony in the New York attorney general’s ongoing civil fraud trial.

Eric Trump is expected to resume his testimony this morning after spending time on the stand Thursday afternoon.

Former President Donald Trump has complained repeatedly that the civil trial in New York, where he’s accused of business fraud, does not have a jury – and the fate of the case is up to Judge Arthur Engoron.

Trump’s lawyers say the New York state law that state Attorney General Letitia James used to bring the complaint against him – a civil statute giving the state attorney general wide latitude to go after “persistent fraud” in business – did not allow him to request a jury trial.

But legal experts familiar with New York state law say that the question of whether Trump could have sought a jury trial is complicated. While Trump may not have been likely to succeed, experts said the question of a jury trial is something that Trump’s lawyers could have tried to litigate.

At the start of the trial, Engoron noted that no parties in the case requested a jury trial and that the law mandated a “bench trial” decided by a judge.

“You have probably noticed or already read that this case has no jury,” Engoron said. “Neither side asked for one and, in any event, the remedies sought are all equitable in nature, mandating that the trial be a bench trial, one that a judge alone decides.”

Trump’s lawyers have pushed back on the notion that they failed to request a jury trial, as some have suggested based on paperwork filed in the case.

“Under 63 (12), which is what this case is, you don’t have a right, an absolute right to a jury,” Trump lawyer Alina Habba said on Fox News previously.

A Trump spokesperson said that the attorney general “filed this case under a consumer protection statute that denies the right to a jury.”

“There was never an option to choose a jury trial,” the spokesperson said. “It is unfortunate that a jury won’t be able to hear how absurd the merits of this case are and conclude no wrongdoing ever happened.”

In other legal cases that the former president has faced, however, Trump and his attorneys have lamented that he is unable to receive a fair verdict from a jury in New York. After a New York jury found that Trump sexually abused E. Jean Carroll in 1996, attorney Joe Tacopina said that Trump is “firm in his belief” that he cannot get a fair trial in New York City “based on the jury pool.”

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