As I have been saying since the ever corruptible NY AG Letitia James brought fraud charges against President Trump that her case does not hold water because banks do not just accept all the information a borrower puts on their application. They have an entire process by which they accept or deny loans. Nicholas Haigh, who served as a Deutsche Bank risk management officer when Trump was applying for the loans testified in court and he did James no favor.
Haigh related exactly how the loans went down and what problems they were able to work out with Trump. One thing you need to understand is that banks do not count collateral by how much the7 can sell it for in case of default. They discount it, knowing they cann9ot sell the assets for the full value unless they are willing to sit on it for an extended period of time and that does not work for them.
There were a couple of properties that were overvalued as far as the loans were concerned, but they were able to reach an agreement with Trump based on a quick sale of assets rather than the full market value. He explained the complicated procedures in granting a loan and what they needed to decide to give Trump the loans. He went on to say that the loans played out exactly how they intended them to. His bank was paid in full with interest and all parties were happy with the results. There were no victims and no crimes, so why did James bring charges? because she is much more concerned with politics that protecting NY citizens from real and violent crimes.
Donald Trump obtained hundreds of millions of dollars in loans using financial statements that a court has since deemed fraudulent, a retired bank official testified Wednesday at the former president’s New York civil fraud trial.
Trump’s “statements of financial condition” were key to his approval for a $125 million loan in 2011 for his golf resort in Doral, Florida, and a $107 million loan in 2012 for his Chicago hotel and condo skyscraper, former Deutsche Bank risk management officer Nicholas Haigh testified…
VISIT OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL“I think the phrase we used might have been ‘sanity checks’ on the numbers,” he said.
Contrary to the prosecution’s claims that Donald Trump had somehow pulled a fast one on the banks, Haigh testified that they frequently gave “sizable haircuts” to the values that Trump’s attorneys assigned to his properties. That’s what Haigh referred to as “sanity checks.” When Trump claimed his total worth was $4.3 billion, Deutsche Bank trimmed it down to $2.5 billion. (That’s a rather hefty “trim,” isn’t it?) Of Trump’s financial standing, Haigh testified that the “representations of the assets and liabilities were broadly accurate.”
When estimating the value of undeveloped property that Trump was seeking a loan to develop, Deutsche Bank knocked 75% off of Trump’s claim in one case. They similarly slashed Trump’s claimed value of his golf courses in at least one instance. In the end, both parties agreed to the terms. The loans were made and they were repaid on schedule.
I’m not sure what the court thought they were going to accomplish by bringing this guy in to testify. It sounds like he did nothing more than describe business as usual in Manhattan. Or at least it was “usual” by the standards of people who travel in Donald Trump’s financial circles. Most of the questions being raised deal with the estimated values of various properties. And in the business world, a thing is worth precisely as much as someone is willing to pay for it. Trump played that game well enough to become quite wealthy and the banks happily went along for the ride. The only “fraud” in sight here is coming from the office of Letitia James.
