Trump Should ‘Get a Medal’ for Real Estate Biz, Not a Lifetime Ban, His Lawyer Says as Fraud Case Wraps

Donald Trump’s lead attorney argued on Thursday that the case against the former president was “manufactured to pursue a political agenda” and designed to "put someone who's been part of the fabric" out of business in New York real estate.

Trump’s lead attorney Christopher Kise, who also represents the former president in his classified documents case in Florida, asserted that none of the witnesses in the 44-day trial accused his client of defrauding them. 

"Again as flattering as it may be, judge, the only cite they have is to you," Kise told Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron.

In September, Engoron found that Trump inflated his assets on statements of financial condition between $812 million and $2.2 billion dollars every year between 2014 and 2021. The judge imposed the corporate death penalty on any New York business belonging to Trump, his sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., and ex-business associates Jeffrey McConney and Allen Weisselberg, who are all defendants in the case. That decree ordered corporations underpinning those properties dissolved, including the eponymous Trump Organization that runs hotels, golf courses, residential properties and a branding operation around the globe.

But that ruling only decided the first of seven counts of a lawsuit filed against Trump by New York Attorney General Letitia James. 

If found liable on the remaining six, Trump may face a lifetime ban from the New York real estate industry and be forced to pay roughly $370 million in “ill-gotten gains.”

As his roughly two-hour arguments drew to a close, Kise warned that such an outcome could hand every attorney general "limitless" power to "weaponize" her office in a way that threatens the business community in New York.

"I know that word gets tossed around," Kise said.

His client's Republican allies in Congress created a so-called "Weaponization" committee dedicated largely to investigating Trump's criminal and civil woes.

Before the trial, the judge rejected claims of political bias, in a decision that remains undisturbed by any appellate court, which allowed the case to proceed to trial late last year. The attorney general argues that the case applies an established statute based on sound law and evidence.

In November, the state’s lead financial expert Michiel McCarty estimated that lenders like Deutsche Bank lost roughly $168 million on interest they could have charged if they had an accurate portrait of Trump’s net worth. 

According to the attorney general, Trump wrongly made roughly $139 million off a deal to transform the government-owned Old Post Office to the former president’s now-shuttered hotel in Washington, D.C. The Trump Organization also made roughly $60 million from the sale of a golf course in Ferry Point in The Bronx, a property that the attorney general also alleges the former president fraudulently acquired. 

On the last deal, Kise said Trump created a "world class facility" in less than a year. "He should get a medal," Kise said, referring to Trump.

Setting his sights beyond a defense on those remaining counts, Kise attacked the basis of the lawsuit against Trump, which he claimed was barred by the statute of limitations. Engoron rejected that argument before trial, in a matter bound for New York's appellate courts.

Throughout his presentation, Kise accompanied his remarks with a slideshow, beginning with ones titled "Not One Witness" and "Not One Complaint," referring to a purported lack of allegations of fraud. One of the state's witnesses invited Kise's sharpest attacks: Trump's former fixer Michael Cohen, whom he called a "serial liar." Cohen initially testified that Trump asked him to "reverse engineer" his financial statements to reach an "arbitrarily" inflated number, but he later reversed himself by stating that the former president never gave such an explicit directive.

"He testifies to it, right there," Kise exclaimed, pointing to the stand where Cohen sat.

"Then, he says right there, President Trump did not direct him to inflate the numbers," Kise added.

Cohen later asserted that Trump delivered his wishes tacitly, "like a mob boss," but Trump's attorneys tore into him, repeatedly accusing him of perjuring himself in federal court and in Congress. In 2018, the ex-Trump fixer pleaded guilty to lying to Congress and engaging in campaign finance violations for his former boss, but he also admitted to unrelated fraud charges, which he disavowed on the witness stand.

In so doing, Trump's advocates say, Cohen committed a fresh act of perjury. Cohen denies this.

Attorney General James has downplayed Cohen's importance to the case, and Justice Engoron disputed that he is a key witness. After Cohen's testimony, the judge said that there is "enough evidence in this case to fill this courtroom" in support of the view that Trump sent fraudulently inflated financial statements to banks and insurers to obtain favorable terms. But Kise contends that Trump needed no help getting a foot in the door with institutions like Deutsche Bank.

"They’re dragging President Trump through the door," Kise said.

On Nov. 29, 2011, Deutsche Bank managing director Rosemary Vrablic sent an email to fellow company executive Marcus Mitchell: "We are whale hunting." 

Alluding to this evidence, Kise said: "He's a 'whale' client. He's one of 10 or 25 people that the bank wants to welcome through its doors."

The state disputes this view: In their closing brief, the attorney general noted that Deutsche Bank’s former risk management chief Nicholas Haigh and insurance writers testified that they relied upon Trump’s financial statements. Their closing arguments are expected to take place in the afternoon.

Trump initially sought to deliver his own closing remarks, but the judge revoked his permission for that unorthodox arrangement after the former president refused not to turn that forum into a "campaign speech."