Former President Donald Trump has boasted with impunity for decades about his net worth, a subject matter close to his heart, and to his ego.
“I look better if I’m worth $10 billion than if I’m worth $4 billion,” he once said when disputing his ranking on the Forbes billionaires list. In a court case, Trump said that when it came to describing the net worth of his brand, he is as “accurate as I think I can be.” And when he described himself in his book, he said it was “truthful hyperbole.”
But Trump is now facing questions under oath about his pattern of embellishment. The investigation may shape the future of his family’s real estate business.
Trump and his eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump, are expected to be questioned in court soon by the New York State attorney general’s office, which is in the midst of a civil investigation into whether he and his company fraudulently inflated the value of his assets.
Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. was interviewed last week as a part of the investigation.
The New York attorney general Letitia James argued in court papers that “fraudulent or misleading” business practices reigned at the Trump Organization for years.
James said her investigators must question the Trumps to find out who was responsible for these business practices.
Trump fought hard to avoid an interview, but a judge ordered him to face questioning. Investigators will seek to elicit answers that may finally reveal whether he approved bogus valuations of his properties, including hotels, golf clubs, and other assets.
A misstep in the deposition could cost Trump a lot of money. He could also lose even more. Trump is the focus of a separate criminal investigation into the same issues.
That investigation is being conducted by the Manhattan district attorney’s office, and it lost some momentum earlier in the year, but now prosecutors are planning to review Trump’s answers and any incriminating statements or clumsy comments could breathe new life into it.
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