A key selling point of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential run was that he was a businessman, not a politician.
In a partial victory for James, Judge Arthur Engoron found there had been a systemic overvaluation of assets, such as Trump Tower and other properties, to better negotiate with banks. “Trump’s ability to do business in New York State has pretty much ended by this ruling,” Pace University law professor Bennett Gershman told AFP.
For Trump, who is seeking the White House again in 2024, the stakes are high: according to Forbes magazine, the 77-year-old’s New York real estate represented $720 million of his $2.5 billion fortune. “And what we saw yesterday is a court saying, ‘There’s no dispute about the fact that Donald Trump has systematically lied about his wealth,’ in really dramatic ways, up to hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars.”