If I understand correctly, Trump is on trial for inflating the prices of his properties to obtain
favorable loans and insurance deals. Has any insurance company or loan company
sued Trump? If Trump was doing this to avoid taxes I could see the government
going after him. But if the insurance and/or loan companies are not complaining (AFAIK)
can he still be sued by the government?
My apologies if this question has been asked before. Thank you for your answers.
First, there is a entire thread devoted to the trial but in a nutshell here is what I got.
Yes, the government is suing because he inflated the value of his properties for the express purpose of getting loans with favorable terms, while he understated the values of the same properties for use in paying taxes. He also misrepresented the sqaure footage of his own residance in trump Tower and stated that Mar-A-Largo could be sold and split up of residential use, which it cannot.
As for the banks, they most likely do not want to sue becasue they are part of the fraud by taking him at his word for the property values, they are supposed to do their own evaluations.
Yes, this case is being extensively discussed in this thread:
However, no one expects you to trawl through fifteen hundred-ish posts to get the answer to your question.
It’s still fraud, even if the insurance/loan companies aren’t complaining, because they offered Trump more favorable terms based on his representations made to them. Had they understood the true risks, they may have imposed higher insurance premiums or interest rates.
Think of it as the difference between a secured and an unsecured loan. If you go to your bank and represent that you’d like to borrow $100,000 against the equity in your home, you’ll get one rate. If you ask for the same $100,000 based solely on your good name, you’ll get a less favorable rate.
Say you scam the bank by representing that you’ve got $100,000’s worth of equity in your home, but in fact you sold the home to your son on the QT. The bank doesn’t know this and lends you the money anyway. You’ve committed fraud.
An additional point is that the State of New York needs to regulate the businesses that operate in the state to ensure they conform (at least loosely, we know far too many don’t) to normal business practices. Part of the suit against Trump Co (the extended web of businesses operated by Trump) that was decided earlier is that, no, no they aren’t and said licenses were to be suspended, an action that is paused at this moment due to appeal.
So yeah, even if none of the other directly injured parties (lost loan revenue, underpaid insurers) are party to the suit, there’s the public good element. I still haven’t heard much about state/federal evasion, beyond a Florida Rep saying (paraphrase) “You’re taxed on an $18 million property, but in court you just said it was $1.5 billion - well, let’s fix that!”.
Here’s a previous thread discussing the civil statute which authorizes the AG NY to bring this action.
It’s a civil statute to prevent fraudulent business practices.