Bill Barr was back to being a Donald Trump loyalist as he misleadingly and falsely attacked A.G. Letitia James’ massive fraud suit against Trump and his children. "Straight news" anchors John Roberts and Sandra Smith were there to help!
To be clear, New York Attorney General Letitia James set forth a number of very serious and well-documented allegations of fraud against Donald Trump and his children.
Some excerpts from the statement by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG):
The lawsuit alleges that Donald Trump, with the help of his children Donald Trump, Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Eric Trump, and senior executives at the Trump Organization, falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars to induce banks to lend money to the Trump Organization on more favorable terms than would otherwise have been available to the company, to satisfy continuing loan covenants, to induce insurers to provide insurance coverage for higher limits and at lower premiums, and to gain tax benefits, among other things. From 2011-2021, Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization knowingly and intentionally created more than 200 false and misleading valuations of assets on his annual Statements of Financial Condition to defraud financial institutions.
…
In the 214-page complaint, which is the culmination of our investigation that included more than 65 witness interviews and review of millions of pages of documents, OAG lays out dozens of examples of this fraudulent activity and how Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization routinely and intentionally misvalued assets to further enrich Mr. Trump. The complaint includes fraudulent conduct across more than 23 different properties and other assets owned by Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization.
Just two of the many examples of this misconduct include:
Trump Tower Triplex:
Valuations of this property relied on objectively false numbers to calculate property values. For example, Mr. Trump’s own triplex apartment in Trump Tower was valued as being 30,000 square feet when it was 10,996 square feet. As a result, in 2015 the apartment was valued at $327 million in total, or $29,738 per square foot. That price was absurd given the fact that at that point only one apartment in New York City had ever sold for even $100 million, at a price per square foot of less than $10,000, and that sale was in a newly built, ultra-tall tower. In 30 year-old Trump Tower, the record sale at that time was a mere $16.5 million at a price of less than $4,500 per square foot.
Trump Park Avenue:
This property is included as an asset on Mr. Trump’s Statement of Financial Condition from 2011 to 2021 with values ranging between $90.9 million and $350 million. Unsold residential condominium units owned by Mr. Trump or the Trump Organization represented the lion’s share of reported value for this property (in excess of 95% in some years). Reported values of the unsold residential units of the Trump Park Avenue building were significantly higher than the internal valuations used by the Trump Organization for business planning and failed to account for the fact that many units were rent stabilized. For example, an outside, bank-ordered appraisal in 2010 valued the 12 rent-stabilized at $750,000 total. Yet, in the 2011 and 2012 statements, the rent-stabilized apartments at Trump Park Avenue were valued as market rate for nearly $50 million total. In July 2020, the Trump Organization received an appraisal with a value of $84.5 million but on the 2020 Statement the Trump Organization valued Trump Park Avenue at $135.8 million.
Not surprisingly, Barr did not dispute any single allegation nor did co-anchors John Roberts and Sandra Smith ask about any. Instead, Roberts opened by setting the table for validating Trump’s whine that he’s a (racial) victim of A.G. James. And Barr filled in the propaganda pieces.
ROBERTS: It would seem that [James’] goal is to bar anybody with the last name “Trump” for ever working for the Trump organization again.
BARR: Right.
ROBERTS: It would seem that her goal is to eviscerate the family business. What do you think of what she’s doing?
Notice how carefully Barr parsed his words. He never said the suit has no merit, he just implied it. He did not dispute any of the facts alleged by James, which suggests he either did not know them, in which case he should have said so, but didn’t, or that he knew the facts and did not want to acknowledge how damning they are.
BARR: It’s hard for me not to conclude it’s a political hit job. This is a woman who campaigned for office promising she’s going to go after Trump, which I think is a tremendous abuse of office, to go head-hunting and targeting individuals. So, I think she was targeting Trump.
First of all, that may be relevant to the overall case but that does not bear at all on any of the allegations.
More importantly, targeting individuals and politicizing prosecutions is exactly what Barr has been credibly accused of, when he was Trump's U.S. attorney general, by former U.S. District Attorney Geoffrey Berman.
Not that Roberts or co-anchor Sandra Smith mentioned any of that inconvenient but quite relevant history. Instead, Roberts later helped the meme by noting that James is running for re-election, saying, “and this would be a big plum for her to come out and say, ‘I’m gonna get the former president.'” Smith did her part by later asking, “How is she going to be held accountable?”
Barr went on to seriously downplay the lawsuit’s “gist" in his description of it: “When the Trump Organization borrowed money, Trump personally guaranteed those loans and to support that she’s claiming that he inflated his assets on his financial statements.”
Neither anchor pointed out that Trump allegedly inflated his assets by hundreds of millions of dollars, not a few measly thousands or even "only" a couple of millions. So Barr continued.
BARR: But what ultimately persuades me that this is a political hit job is she grossly overreaches when she tries to drag the children into this. Yes, they had roles in the business but this was his personal financial statement, it was prepared by the CFO, accounting firms were involved in it – the children aren’t going to know the details of that – nor are they expected in the real world to do their own due diligence and have it reviewed independently.
Again, we’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars in false valuations – the kind of thing a principal in the business should be able to spot on his or her own.
Furthermore, Trump and his son, Eric Trump, invoked the Fifth Amendment hundreds of times.
Again, crickets on the subject from Roberts and Smith.
So Barr went on to claim the suit will backfire and “make people sympathetic to Trump.” He called it “another example of people piling on because of Trump derangement syndrome.”
Next, Barr attacked the case with a major falsehood.
BARR: She brought this as a civil case. This is not a criminal case and to me that says that she doesn’t have the evidence to make a criminal case. So she’s setting a lower bar in bringing a civil case.
FACT CHECK: James does not have the authority to bring a criminal case.
“I don’t think it’s going to go any further,” Barr said.
We’ll see about that. As Roberts noted at the end, James made criminal referrals to the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and to the IRS.
In fact, James' case could be difficult to prove, The New York Times notes:
Property valuations are often subjective, and the financial statements include a disclaimer stating that they have not been audited. And if there were a trial, his lawyers would most likely emphasize that Deutsche Bank and Mr. Trump’s other lenders were hardly victims; all of his loans are either current or were paid off, some early.
Mr. Trump also famously does not use email, so any instructions he might have given his employees about the company’s financial statements might not be in writing. The lack of a damning email — or a witness inside his company willing to testify against him — might complicate her effort to show that he intentionally used his financial statements to defraud lenders and insurers.
But Barr went from "maybe hard to prove" to "political hit job" and ignored the very damning behavior throughout.
I’m not sure what Barr’s game plan is. Previously, when he blasted Trump's theft of the classified material, I theorized he had teamed up with Rupert Murdoch to push the GOP to move on from Trump because he’s bad for their midterm election prospects. Now, I’m wondering if Barr wants a Fox contributor’s contract. Or maybe he’s just a racist like Trump.
Whatever Barr’s reason, I don’t think it’s out of any concern for truth or justice.
You can watch Barr prove he has no sense of decency below, from the September 21, 2022 America Reports.
In the memo, Barr made an argument similar to Trump’s lawyers — that presidents cannot be investigated for actions such as firing officials who work for them without good reason.
Trump perked up his ears and said ’That’s my guy!’ and the rest is horrible history.