Eric Trump testifies he wasn’t aware of dad’s financial statements

NEW YORK (AP) — Eric Trump, one of two sons entrusted to run Donald Trump’s real estate empire, swore Thursday that he was never involved with financial statements that New York state lawyers say fraudulently puffed up the ex-president’s wealth and the worth of the family business.

But when shown a decade-old email asking him for information for one of his dad’s financial statements, the irritated son strove to clarify.

“We’re a major organization, a massive real estate organization — yes, I’m fairly sure I understand that we have financial statements. Absolutely,” Eric Trump testified at the family’s and company’s civil fraud trial. But the Trump Organization executive vice president insisted: “I had no involvement and never worked on my father’s statement of financial condition.”

Though another Trump Organization executive has testified that Eric Trump was on a video call about his father’s financial statement as recently as 2021, the son said he couldn’t remember it.

“I’m on a thousand calls a day,” he said.

Eric Trump followed brother and fellow Trump Organization Executive Vice President Donald Trump Jr. to the stand on a closely watched and sometimes fractious day in the trial. The day ended with Judge Arthur Engoron suggesting he might expand a gag order, after defense lawyers again criticized his law clerk’s role in the case.

Early in the trial, Engoron barred participants in the case from smearing his staff after Donald Trump maligned the clerk on social media. The former president has been fined twice, a total of $15,000, for what the judge said were violations.

Trump’s lawyers have repeatedly complained about the clerk passing notes to the judge during testimony, a practice the attorneys suggest is inappropriate and unfair to them. Engoron says he has an “absolutely unfettered right” to the clerk’s advice.

When the defense complained again Thursday, with Eric Trump watching quietly from the witness stand, a sometimes table-pounding Engoron said he might expand the gag order to include attorneys if anyone refers to a member of his staff again.

The former president, his adult sons and other defendants deny wrongdoing in the case, brought by New York