Donald Trump Jr testified on Wednesday that he never worked on his father's financial statements, which are the documents at the heart of the ongoing civil fraud trial in New York.
The ex-president's eldest son is an executive vice president of the family’s Trump Organization and has been a trustee of a trust set up to hold its assets when his father was in the White House.
At least one of the annual financial statements bore language saying the trustees “are responsible” for the document. But Donald Trump Jr said he didn't recall ever working on any of the financial statements and had “no specific knowledge” of them.
The lawsuit centres on whether the former president and his business misled banks and insurers by inflating his net worth on the financial statements. He and other defendants, including sons Donald Jr. and Eric, deny wrongdoing.
“I should have worn makeup,” Trump Jr joked as photographers took his picture ahead of his testimony.
When asked to slow down, the fast-talking Trump Jr said: “I apologise, your honour. I moved to Florida but I kept the New York pace.”
Trump Jr said he signed off on statements as a trustee, but had left the work to outside accountants and the company's then-finance chief, Allen Weisselberg.
“As a trustee, I have an obligation to listen those who are expert – who have an expertise of these things,” he said.
“I wasn't working on the document, but if they tell me that it's accurate, based on their accounting assessment of all of the materials,” he said, “these people had an incredible intimate knowledge, and I relied on them”.
He is due to return to the stand Thursday and next up will be his brother and fellow Trump Organization Executive Vice President Eric Trump and, on Monday, their father – the family patriarch, company founder, former president and 2024 Republican front-runner.
Daughter Ivanka, a former Trump Organization executive and White House adviser, is scheduled to take the stand November 8. But her lawyers on Wednesday appealed Judge Arthur Engoron's decision to require her testimony.
New York Attorney General Letitia James brought the lawsuit, alleging that Donald Trump, his company and top executives, including Eric and Donald Jr., conspired to exaggerate his wealth by billions of dollars on his financial statements. The documents were given to banks, insurers and others to secure loans and make deals.
The former president has called the case a “sham,” a “scam,” and “a continuation of the single greatest witch hunt of all time”.
James is a Democrat, as is Engoron, who ruled before the trial that Trump's financial statements were fraudulent. The judge ordered that a court-appointed receiver seize control of some Trump companies, potentially stripping the former president and his family of such marquee properties as Trump Tower, though an appeals court has halted enforcement for now.
"Leave my children alone, Engoron," Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social site Wednesday, before court convened.
