On Wednesday, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced her $250 million civil lawsuit against former President Donald Trump, specifically citing former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s 2019 testimony, where he revealed that the former president fraudulently inflated the value of his assets.
“I will remind everyone that this investigation only began after Michael Cohen, the former lawyer, his former lawyer testified before Congress, shed light on this misconduct,” he said.
The question that prompted Mr. Cohen came in 2019 from James’ fellow New Yorker, Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
In 2019, Cohen testified against his first before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Then Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, who the previous year had defeated former House Democratic caucus chairman Joe Crowley in a primary in New York’s 14th district, raised questions about whether Mr. Trump ever provided inflated assets to a insurance company
“Yes,” Mr. Cohen said in response. When Ms Ocasio-Cortez asked who else knew Trump did this, she said: “Allen Weisselberg, Ron Lieberman and Matthew Calamari.”
The lawsuit also named Mr. Lieberman, the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization. Specifically, he said Weisselberg helped Trump make fraudulent financial statements about his properties.
“Mr. Trump made it known through Mr. Weisselberg that he wanted his net worth on his returns to increase each year, and the returns were the vehicle by which his net worth was fraudulently inflated by thousands of billions of dollars year after year,” Ms. James’ office said. in a statement.
“And where would the committee find more information on that, do you think we need to go through their financial statements and their tax returns,” he said.
“Yes, and you would find him in the Trump Org,” Cohen said.
The lawsuit alleges that Mr. Trump fraudulently inflated his net worth by millions of dollars so that banks could lend money to him and his companies on more favorable terms that would otherwise not have been available.