Legal experts warned that Eric Trump’s testimony did not do his family any favors in the New York fraud trial that threatens to bring down the Trump Organization.
Eric Trump, like his brother Donald Trump Jr., before him, repeatedly blamed the company’s accountants for exaggerated financial statements that led Judge Arthur Engoron to issue a summary judgment finding the company and family liable for fraud before the trial even began.
His testimony concluded early on Friday with his father set to testify when the trial resumes on Monday.
“Eric done for the day, and leaves the stand having been beat up badly,” tweeted former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman. “He signed document after document, [including] for bank loans, that were inaccurate. He tries a combo of ‘I relied on the accountants’ and ‘I don't recall,’ but often flounders.”
Litman added that a “trial is a series of standout memorable moments — maybe 10 or so — surrounded by a lot of uneventful testimony. And so far the moments in the fraud trial have all broken for the NY AG & against the Trumps.”
CNN legal analyst Elie Honig said on Friday that the testimony “went really poorly for Eric Trump” and could complicate his father’s appearance on the stand next week.
"When he was deposed over a year ago he took the Fifth, he wouldn't answer anything other than his name and he took the Fifth as he is entitled to do,” Honig said.
"But the world has changed for Donald Trump," he continued. "Back then, there were all these swirling criminal investigations; none of the four indictments we have now had landed. The world was a bit more uncertain for him. A year and change later he's been indicted on four things, none relating to this particular fraud. If he takes the Fifth he protects himself against any of those cases roaring back to life."
Honig warned that it’s possible that Trump “takes the stand and says something that piques prosecutors' interest, they may think maybe we should open a criminal case on him for fraud.”
"The risk of taking the Fifth is that the judge in this case, this civil case, can say I'm using that against you,” he added.
New York Attorney General Letitia James called out Eric and Donald Jr. in a video posted to social media, saying they "pretend that they were not involved in their family's fraudulent business. But the facts tell a very different story."
Eric Trump "insisted that he had never heard about his father's statements of financial condition before our investigation,” she said. "He told us his job was just to pour concrete. But his emails tell a different story. On multiple occasions over the years, Eric Trump worked on his father's statements of financial condition. And he was intimately involved in lying about the values of properties, like Seven Springs and Briarcliff, to make his father appear richer than he actually was."
James ended with a warning to the former president ahead of his appearance next week.
"Next week, Donald Trump himself will take the stand. And while I am sure he will try to hide his wrongdoing behind taunts, threats, name-calling,” she said, “we will not be bullied out of uncovering the truth.”
