On the stand at trial, Jeffrey McConney, a longtime financial executive at the Trump family’s business who recently left his formal position but remains a defendant in the high-stakes New York case against Trump from Letitia James, tied Eric Trump (son to the former president) to deceptive numbers that helped boost claimed valuations for various assets at the Trump business.
These artificially higher claims of value left the Trump companies able to access better financial arrangements, like loans from banks. These issues have driven the fraud allegations in James’ case.
Details on McConney pointing to Eric Trump were shared by The Daily Beast. “McConney testified that, after a telephone conversation with the Trump company executive in 2013, another section of Seven Springs jumped in value on paper from $25 million to $101 million—even though they couldn’t actually sell the property they claimed to have,” that publication said. The executive to which the passage is referring is Eric. A questioner with New York state Attorney General James’ office also got McConney to admit that Eric informed him at the time that key, planned developments from which the company still drew for value claims were, in fact, then halted.
Another highlight from McConney’s revelations include his admission to intentionally deleting a listing of market values for portions of a Trump property near Central Park from documents sent to outside accountants working with the former president’s companies. Those details on market value could have provided critical reference points for the assessments of assets at the Trump Organization that drove the loans it received. Though Trump himself has tried to claim that disclaimers included with disputed statements of financial condition effectively shield him from serious consequences, the presiding judge, Arthur Engoron, has explicitly rejected this argument, finding instead that the disclaimers simply didn’t appropriately match the financial details that were actually obscured and that key details that would have been clarifying rested with defendants, including Donald.
