“People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole,” Donald Trump wrote 36 years ago in his bestselling book The Art of the Deal. “It’s an innocent form of exaggeration, and a very effective form of promotion.” This week a New York judge called Trump’s “truthful hyperbole” fraud in a ruling that could cost the former president a fortune and end his control of the business empire that made him the world’s most famous businessman and president of the United States.
Trump is mired in litigation but perhaps no case is more personal to him than the one beginning on Monday at a Manhattan courthouse near the city’s financial district. The case, brought by New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, comes after a three-year investigation into Trump’s complex and sprawling businesses. James contends that Trump consistently overstated the value of his assets to broker deals and obtain financing.
