‘The people call Donald J. Trump.” So began Monday’s episode of the Democratic Party’s favorite legal drama, as Mr. Trump took the witness stand in Manhattan court. The judge in this civil case has already ruled that Mr. Trump’s business empire gave inflated asset numbers to lenders, including by almost tripling the square footage of his Trump Tower residence.
“They were not really documents that the banks paid much attention to,” Mr. Trump told the court, according to news accounts. He argued that his assets, including his brand value, were actually higher than reported. Why was his Trump Tower triplex claimed as 30,000 square feet, instead of the actual 11,000? He speculated that perhaps the bigger figure didn’t exclude elevator shafts and other nonusable space, or maybe it included the building’s roof, to which he has access.
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