Former lawyer, financial aide and now Donald Trump's prosecution witness Michael Cohen believes the fraud lawsuit filed Wednesday against the former president by New York State Attorney General Letitia James "is going to wipe out the entire company." ” Republican Leader's Real Estate.
The head of the Public Ministry in the state of the Big Apple accuses Trump, as well as his three eldest sons and those who were the main executives of the group, Allen Weisselberg and Jeffrey McConney, of "illegally inflating the net worth" of the so-called Organization Trump "in billions of dollars" in order to "unjustly enrich themselves, lie to the system and thus deceive us all."
The deception would have consisted of overvaluing the group's properties to attract investors and obtain tax and credit benefits.
The lawsuit includes a request to the Trumps for compensation to the state in the amount of 250 million dollars. But, in an interview granted to the NBC network on Wednesday, Cohen said that figure is expected to increase to about 750 million when the investigators finish unraveling the entire fraudulent plot.
In the public presentation of her civil action before the media, prosecutor James indicated that her investigations began as a result of the explosive testimony that Cohen gave three years ago before Congress, regarding the activities of the Trump Organization.
“When James mentioned my name, I was obviously quite elated to see that I am finally receiving recognition for what I have been clamoring for from the tops of the mountains for three and a half years, and that is that the Trump Organization is a criminal enterprise and the dear Donald threw me under the wheels of the bus.
Four years ago, Michael Cohen, who since 2006 had served as Trump's personal adviser and even vice president of his business group, was sentenced to three years in prison for tax evasion and violation of the rules on electoral financing, in the campaign of the presidential elections of 2016. The lawyer, who was deeply involved in the murky matter of Trump's payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels, finally served a year and a half in prison.
Speculation about the risk that the former president's fortune may run goes beyond Cohen's opinion and the New York prosecutor's fraud lawsuit. For starters, the Trump Organization is set to go on trial next month in New York on criminal charges of tax evasion, in a parallel case to James that could also cost him millions of dollars.
This second case is potentially joined by many others, including an indefinite number of individual lawsuits for damages in the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and all of them could damage the leader's finances.
As John Pottow, professor of commercial law at the University of Michigan, states in The New York Times, "Trump's companies face serious litigation risks" and consequently he exposes himself to "great financial liabilities".
Other experts, on the other hand, believe that Trump and his business group can weather the storm. And they cite the millionaire profits that the Organization of the former president has just generated with the sale of the Trump International Hotel in Washington, for 375 million dollars, last May.
The company also continues to collect revenue from some of its commercial real estate projects; other hotels still in Trump hands have recovered from losses suffered in the pandemic, and his golf clubs are also growing.
Phillip A. Braun, a finance professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, believes that prosecutor James' lawsuit may be "painful" for the Trump family but manageable through the liquidation of some of their properties.
It does not seem easy to finish off the former US president, neither politically nor economically. The law, however, does not seem to be on his side. The fence tightens.
