The civil trial of Donald Trump and two of his sons, who are accused of massively inflating their real estate assets for years, begins Monday in New York, threatening his economic empire and paving the way for a legal marathon for the candidate to obtain the Republican Party nomination for the 2024 presidential elections.

The 77-year-old former president and his lawyers have hinted that he may attend at least the first hearings before the New York State Supreme Court. Trump was called as a witness.

Trump announced that he would appear in court on Monday. “I will go to court tomorrow morning to defend my name and reputation,” he said on his “Truth Social” platform on Sunday, describing the New York prosecutor as “corrupt” and the judge as “deranged.”

Trump cannot be sentenced to prison in this case, but this trial will provide a preview of the legal events that are likely to derail his campaign for the Republican nomination.

Trump is criminally accused in four different cases that have not yet affected his popularity with the Republican base. In particular, he must appear as of March 4 before a federal court in Washington. He is accused of trying, while in the White House, to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election, which Joe Biden won.

He will then face trial in New York State on charges of tax fraud, and then in Florida because of his negligent handling of secret documents after his departure from the presidency.

Judge Arthur Engoron said that Trump and two of his sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, committed "repeated" financial "frauds" in the first decade of this century by inflating the value of the financial and real estate assets of their company, the Trump Organization, by between $812 million and $2.2 billion. Between 2014 and 2021.
He stressed that the documents presented by the Public Prosecutor “clearly” show “fraudulent assessments” by Trump of the assets of his group, which includes various companies that include residential real estate, luxury hotels, golf clubs, and many others.

As a result, the judge ordered the withdrawal of business licenses in New York State from Donald Trump and his sons Eric and Donald Jr., in addition to the confiscation of the companies targeted in the case.

Will Thomas, a professor of commercial law at the University of Michigan, said that implementing these sanctions “would represent a massive blow to Donald Trump’s ability to do business in New York State.”

Trump made his fortune during the 1980s in the real estate sector, gambling and casinos. If these licenses are withdrawn from him, he will be at risk of losing control over many of the leading companies in his empire, such as Trump Tower (“Trump Tower”) located on the famous Fifth Avenue in New York.

This building is at the heart of the charges brought against Trump by Attorney General Letitia James, as he is suspected of inflating the area of his three-story apartment in Trump Tower three times, and raising the value of Building No. 40 on Wall Street from 200 to 300 million dollars.

The plaintiff also requests that Trump be found guilty of other violations of financial laws and be fined $250 million.

The former Republican president has always rejected these accusations, and considered Attorney General James, an African-American Democrat, “racist,” while Judge Engoron described him as “deranged.”

According to the indictment, the billionaire and his two sons deliberately “inflated” the value of these assets in order to obtain, among other things, loans on better terms from banks between 2011 and 2021.

Trump responded via Truth Social, saying that the banks had never complained about the loans they provided to him.

He stressed that he repaid these loans “in full, with interest, without default, and without any victims.”
It is expected that the trial will be largely technical and that dozens of witnesses will be called to it, including three of Trump’s children, Donald Jr., Eric, and Ivanka, who were initially included in the case but will not be prosecuted in the end.
It is also expected that the list of witnesses will include the former CFO of the Trump Organization, Alan Weisselberg, who spent time in prison after admitting to tax evasion in another case affecting the group, and former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who has become one of his fiercest opponents, in addition to employees of the banks that lent to him. And others.
These legal troubles do not prevent Trump from being far ahead of his rivals in opinion polls to obtain the Republican Party nomination for the 2024 presidential elections.