Donald Trump Jr tells court "I don"t recall" in response to series of questions Donald Trump Jr was asked a series of question about the roles he, his father and Allen Weisselberg had as trustees of the Donald J Trump Revocable Trust. So far, he has said he does not recall much, including why there was a brief period in 2021 when he had resigned and then been restored onto the trust. When asked whether his father is still a trustee of the trust, Trump Jr said, “I don’t recall”. Closing summary The hearing is over for today but Donald Trump Jr will be back in the stand tomorrow, followed by his brother Eric. Today, the prosecution set the ground for their case that Trump Jr was an essential figure in the creation of the documents that proved his father’s fortune. Trump Jr consistently downplayed his involvement. He told the court: “The accountants worked on it. That’s why we pay them.” Here’s a quick glance back at what else happened in court today: Donald Trump Jr answered several questions with “I don’t recall”, including queries about the roles he, his father and Allen Weisselberg had as trustees of the Donald J Trump Revocable Trust. He has said he does not recall much, including why there was a brief period in 2021 when he had resigned and then been restored on to the trust. Michiel McCarty, an expert witness for the prosecution, told the court the Trump Organization’s lenders lost just over $168m due to fudged financial statements. Trump’s lawyers have been arguing through cross examination that the lenders had good relationships with the Trump Organization and had profited off their loans. On the trial’s first day, the attorney general’s office played during their opening argument a series of video clips from depositions of defendants and witnesses, including one of Donald Trump Jr. In the video, Don Jr denies doing work that would have involved utilizing GAAP. The attorney general’s office is arguing that this is not true. The AG’s office submitted this clip into evidence for the day, implying it will become part of questioning. Donald Trump Jr denied playing a role in the creation of a statement of financial condition from 2017, one of the financial documents at the center of the case. Prosecutor Colleen Faherty put a copy of the 2017 statement up on the court’s screen. Trump Jr said that while he might have been asked for information about the assets that would be used to create the statements, he was not involved in filling them out. “They could’ve asked me on any given day what deal was going on” and he would have had the “intimate knowledge” about the assets but had maybe not even known they would be used for the statements. Court has adjourned for the day in the middle of this line of questioning. It will be back in session tomorrow at 10 am. Donald Trump’s lawyer Christopher Kise just interrupted testimony to ask the judge to tell the prosecutor to “move things along”. “We spent an hour on what roles he had,” Kise said, arguing that the judge earlier that day had told the defense team to move along in their cross examination of a previous witness. When prosecutor Colleen Faherty pulled up a document regarding a licensing deal that had a handwritten “okay” from Donald Trump – confirmed by his eldest son – Trump’s lawyers stood up to object again questioning the relevancy of the evidence. “It all feeds into the financial conditions,” Faherty said, adding that she will show that the licensing deals were not included on future statement of financial conditions. “Now you’re testifying, Colleen,” Trump lawyer, Alina Habba, interrupted. Faherty went on to tell Trump’s lawyers, “I know you don’t like it when good evidence comes in.” After some of his own questioning, the judge is allowing Faherty’s line of questioning to continue. Donald Trump Jr tells court "I don"t recall" in response to series of questions Donald Trump Jr was asked a series of question about the roles he, his father and Allen Weisselberg had as trustees of the Donald J Trump Revocable Trust. So far, he has said he does not recall much, including why there was a brief period in 2021 when he had resigned and then been restored onto the trust. When asked whether his father is still a trustee of the trust, Trump Jr said, “I don’t recall”. We’re back from break. Judge Arthur Engoron made a quick joke with Donald Trump Jr back on the stand. Prosecutor Colleen Faherty had asked about the Donald J Trump Revocable Trust. “Now that we finally have the opportunity to ask an actual trustee: is it re-VOH-cable or REH-vocable?” Engoron asked. Trump laughed and responded, “Your honor, it’s a good question but I actually don’t have the answer.” The court is taking a 15-minute break. So far, Donald Trump Jr has been on the stand for about half an hour. Prosecutor Colleen Faherty has been asking Trump to detail his role in the family business. Trump’s team has been trying to argue that they had no personal involvement in the making of the financial statements, though prosecutors are establishing the broad power the family had on the company. Donald Trump Jr said that he and his siblings, Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump had equal footing within the Trump Organization, though “we had our own silos”. Once their father became president, he and Eric Trump, along with former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, took over the business. Trump said that he focused on the Trump Organization’s international business, overseeing things like their licensing deals. Prosecutor Colleen Faherty asked Trump Jr multiple questions about what led Weisselberg to leave the company. Trump Jr denied any knowledge of what led him to leave the company. Weisselberg also stepped down from the Donald J Trump Revocable Trust, which oversees the company. Weisselberg had served a few months in prison earlier this year for tax fraud. He was a witness earlier in the trial, though he said he did not recall much about what prosecutors had asked him about. The New York attorney general’s office is trying to establish the role Donald Trump Jr played in his family’s company. Through a series of questions, prosecutor Colleen Faherty asked Trump to confirm that he started as a project manager for the company in 2001 and then was promoted to executive vice president. Faherty asked Trump if he knew that there were units in Trump Park Avenue, a Trump-owned condo, that were rent-stabilized and if he was familiar with rent-stabilization laws. “I was then, probably forgot most it by now,” Trump said, garnering light laughs for the courtroom. Faherty also briefly brought up his involvement in the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago. Both the Chicago tower and the Park Avenue condo are properties listed as part of the case. Prosecutor Colleen Faherty is starting off testimony by asking Donald Trump Jr about GAAP, or generally acceptable account principles. Trump affirmed that he knows what GAAP is but denies serving in any roles where he would have needed to utilize the principles. This is mirroring a clip prosecutors played for the courtroom on the first day of the trial where Trump similarly denied using accounting principles in his job, saying that is the reason the company hires accountants. “I will rely on professionals and CPAs (certified public accountants),” Trump said. Donald Trump Jr takes the stand About four hours into the trial’s proceedings for the day, Donald Trump Jr finally taking the witness stand. Prosecutor Colleen Faherty, who led the questioning of Michael Cohen last week, is at the helm again for the attorney general’s office. This is the first time Donald Trump Jr has been inside the courtroom since the start of the case. He is listed as a defendant on the case, along with his brother Eric Trump. Trump briefly sat with his father’s lawyers for photographers, who were allowed into the courtroom to take photos and videos. Donald Trump’s lawyer Jesus Suarez is cross examining Michiel McCarty, the expert witness the attorney general’s office hired to help them make their case that lenders to the Trump Organization unwittingly gave out riskier loans to the company because of fudged financial statements. Suarez asked McCarty whether he included in his analysis testimony from Trump Organization lenders that they knew the Trump Organization was conducting their own appraisals for their properties. “No, it was not material to my analysis,” McCarty said. Trump’s team has been arguing that the banks understood the risks they were taking on when giving out the loans and ultimately, they made money off the transaction. Earlier in October, a representative from Deutsche Bank, one of the Trump Organization’s biggest lenders, testified that the company had thought numbers from the Trump Organization were “broadly accurate” and were “comfortable” with terms of the loans. The bank had required Trump to maintain a net worth of at least $2.5bn while the loan was out. The attorney general’s office argues that his net worth at the time was closer to $1.6bn. And we’re back from lunch break. Michiel McCarty, an expert witness testifying on behalf of the state is still in the middle of cross-examination. McCarty estimated that Trump Organization lenders lost out on at least $168m because they inflated their self worth. Before lunch, Trump’s lawyers said their cross examination could take up to three hours, which means Donald Trump Jr may not take the stand until later this afternoon. Trump Organization lenders lost out on $168m in interest, expert witness testifies Much of this morning’s testimony has been centered on the idea that the Trump Organization got lower interest rates because they inflated the value of their assets on financial documents. The loans they received from various lenders would have come with higher interest rates had they put more honest appraisals on various documents, the New York attorney general’s office is arguing. The state hired an expert witness, Michiel McCarty, an investment banker, to calculate some of what the Trump Organization’s lenders lost out on because of the fudged financial statements. The number he calculated was just over $168m – specifically $168,040,168. Trump’s lawyers have been arguing through cross examination that the lenders had good relationships with the Trump Organization and had profited off their loans. Court has adjourned for lunch break. When we come back, McCarty will go back on the stand. If Donald Trump Jr takes the stand, it will be later this afternoon. Arthur Engoron appears to be getting upset at the pace of Trump’s lawyer’s cross-examination of the state’s expert witness, Michiel McCarty. “I can see why this is going to take two or three hours,” the New York judge said, interrupting Trump lawyer Jesus Suarez’s cross-examination. “Please stop making one question into four or five.” Another Trump lawyer, Christopher Kise, stood up defending the questions saying “we need to make our record of this witness”. “We need to challenge his credibility, his memory … We should be allowed some latititude,” Kise said. “I don’t understand why we always get interrupted. It’s becoming a bit of a pattern, respectfully.” “I stand by my ruling and my statements,” Engoron said. The court will break for lunch from 1pm to 2:15pm, meaning Donald Trump Jr may not take the witness stand until later this afternoon. Cross-examination of the state’s expert witness, Michiel McCarty, is starting. Trump’s team will likely try to undercut what he just testified, that the Trump Organization got cheaper loans because they inflating the value of their assets on financial statements. Trump lawyer, Jesus Suarez, is conducting cross examination.