The Trump family has run-ins with law enforcement almost as frequently as other families go grocery shopping. Those confrontations often produce court filings loaded with salacious details about the clan’s machinations — but whether these facts add up to the crimes prosecutors are trying to prove is less clear.
On Tuesday New York Attorney General Letitia James disclosed some of the evidence her office has gathered in its fraud investigation of the Trump Organization. Among the nuggets: During a six-hour deposition with prosecutors, Eric Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself more than 500 times. For good measure, he also invoked his rights under the First, Fourth, Sixth and 14th amendments.
Eric Trump’s knowledge of constitutional law may be a bit shaky. But he did help the former president manage the properties James is examining, and Donald Trump himself has routinely signed documents that wildly inflated (or deflated, depending on what the situation called for) property valuations. James is scrutinizing the paperwork of at least six of Trump’s holdings to see if it helped his family illegally secure bank loans or lower their tax bills. One of the properties in question is Trump’s storied triplex in Trump Tower; James says Trump signed documents saying it was 30,000 square feet and worth $327 million, when it was actually 11,000 square feet and worth $116.8 million (maybe).
