The former President of the United States, Donald Trump and some of his family members had reportedly lied to tax collectors, lenders and insurers for years in a scheme which had also routinely misstated the value of most of his properties in order to enrich themselves, according to a suit which had been filed by New York’s attorney general on Wednesday.
Top state prosecutor Letitia James had also revealed that with the help of his children and others at the Trump Organization, the former president provided fraudulent statements of his net worth and false asset valuations “to obtain and satisfy loans, get insurance benefits, and pay lower taxes.”
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“In short, he lied to gain massive financial benefits for himself.”
The sweeping investigation has been revealed to also be one of te many criminal, civil and congressional probes into Trump, who is also eyeing another run for the White House in 2024.
Trump repeated his oft-used defense that the suit is “another witch hunt” against him, while his spokesperson denounced it as a political move by Democrats against the Republican businessman.
James’ office had also requested that the former president should pay at least $250 million in penalties — a sum she had quipped that had he made from the fraud — and that his family be banned from running businesses in the state. She also urged that Trump along with his children Donald Trump Jr, Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump be barred from purchasing property in the state for five years.
“The very foundation of his purported net worth is rooted in incredible fraud and illegality,” James said in a statement.
Referring the title of Trump’s book “The Art of Deal,” she said that “Mr. Trump thought he could get away with the art of the steal, but today, that conduct ends.”
James had also revealed that her office, which lacks authority to openly file criminal charges, had also been making some criminal referrals to the United States Justice Department as well as the Internal Revenue Service based on the three-year investigation.