Yesterday we noted that Deutsche Bank executive David Williams may have nuked New York’s case against former President Donald Trump – testifying on Tuesday that the bank has no problem with clients overstating their net worth, and that it’s “atypical, but not entirely unusual” for a bank to internally slash a client’s stated asset values by 50% and approve a loan anyway, as they did with Trump.
It gets even better…
Not only did that completely dismantle the prosecution’s core argument that the bank was harmed by Trump inflating his assets, Trump’s former private banker, Rosemary Vrablic, testified on Wednesday that the bank had aggressively pursued the real estate mogul as a ‘whale’ client.
“We are whale hunting … haven’t seen him yet,” she told bankers in a Nov. 29, 2011 email entered into evidence by Trump’s defense team and displayed on screens during the trial. “Also maybe Dad will convert like Ivanka did,” she added.
Vrablic is one of four current and former employees called to testify this week as part of Trump’s defense against claims brought last year by New York Attorney General Letitia James. The state alleges Trump inflated his net worth by as much as $3.6 billion a year to get better terms from banks and insurers, reaping $250 million in “illegal profit” over more than a decade.
While James has portrayed Deutsche Bank as a victim of Trump’s lies, the former president is seeking testimony supporting his argument that lenders were eager to do business with him and weren’t bothered by discrepancies in the value of his assets. -Bloomberg
What’s more, Trump attorney Jesus Suarez on Wednesday asked Vrablic to comment on internal documents from 2014 which described plans to build “lasting, broad private banking relationships” with a list of US clients.
Vrablic, who brokered a loan for Trump’s Doral golf course in Florida as well as properties in Chicago and Washington, testified that Trump fit the bill because “he was in the US commercial real estate market and had a successful track record.”
Internal documents further showed that the bank made $6 million from Trump loans in 2013 alone.
Again…
Cleanup, aisle 3!
In response to yesterday’s bombshell testimony, Kevin Wallace, an attorney with NY AG Letitia James’ office, told judge Arthur Engoron that it’s irrelevant whether Deutsche Bank was happy with Trump, what matters is that he lied!
“The idea that you can’t lie to a bank is pretty well established,” argued Wallace.
Engoron, unsurprisingly, suggested on Tuesday that he agrees with the state’s view on Trump.
“The mere fact that lenders were happy doesn’t mean the statute wasn’t violated,” he said, after previously holding Trump liable for fraud on the eve of the trial.
Now do election fraud, given that the vast majority of 2020 election fraud cases were dismissed by spineless judges across the country for ‘lack of standing,’ since the plaintiffs couldn’t show they were directly harmed – despite evidence that ‘statutes were violated.’
Tyler Durden
Wed, 11/29/2023 – 17:20
