All this was said by other commercial developers and bankers when Miss Letitia announced her intention to indict him, but that didn't stop her show trial

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You want more Trump, this is how you get it. I am tired of the man, but there’s no way I’m willing to see these bastards get away with destroying the threat to their power.

Banker: We had "sanity checks" on Trump's loans

Jazz Shaw, Hot Air:

In the New York trial of Donald Trump related to his supposed fraudulent business loans, the court heard for the first time this week from one of the supposed “victims” of the fraud. Nicholas Haigh, who served as a Deutsche Bank risk management officer when Trump was applying for the loans answered questions for the court and it really didn’t sound like he did much for the prosecution’s case. There was plenty of banking industry technical lingo being thrown around, but the claim that Trump was somehow whitewashing his worth and fooling the banks isn’t holding up under scrutiny. Sure, Trump’s team tried to fluff up his assets to get the best deal possible, but Haigh’s testimony demonstrates that Deutsche Bank isn’t stupid and they wouldn’t still be in business if they were. They examined Trump’s claims when applying for loans and even pushed back when something didn’t seem kosher. He also confirmed that all the transactions played out smoothly, just as they had expected. (Associated Press)

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…

“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.

And that’s the major point of the trial, isn’t it? In order for Letitia James and her friends to claim that Donald Trump “committed years of fraud,” then someone must have been defrauded. There would have to have been “victims.” And Nicholas Haigh was a highly placed individual with one of the supposed victims. They made the amount of money they expected to make on the schedule they agreed to. They were “satisfied.”

Here are just some of the comments to Shaw’s article:

phil22 2 hours ago

I was a middle market lender for years. All my clients were privately held companies and every owner always thought their business was worth more than it was. They always wanted the most debt as possible (it's cheaper than equity - always!). We understood that, but we lent based on what we felt the assets were worth (on a liquidation) and/or on the cash flow currently being generated. This is not hard to understand.

  • I've been a commercial banker for a lot of years and agree with you. We lend against real estate based on appraised values and against pretty much everything else based on the bank's estimated liquidation value. There are actually laws and regulations that require independent appraisals so banks are never allowed to lend against the customer's stated values for real estate.

    TEXDon61 an hour ago

    Such a load of shit they are trying to pull. Whether you like Trump or not, anyone should be able to see this for what it is

    MajorKong 2 hours ago

    In other words, Trump was engaged in running a business.

    Trajan Fanzine 2 hours ago edited

    Im not a big trump guy, but, this is all a farce, the civil law that is being used against him is a catch 22, even if NO 'harm' can be demonstrated by Trumps overestimation of his assets , if anyone even on the positive side, shows an 'effect'/'affect' via this loan, he can ( and will be) judged guilty.....

    Mike Granby 2 hours ago edited

    "In order for Letitia James and her friends to claim that Donald Trump 'committed years of fraud,' then someone must have been defrauded." -- The classic elements of fraud are the deliberate misstatement of a material fact on which another party reasonably relies to their detriment, and on that basis James' case is farcical. But the statute under which she is proceeding does not require detriment, nor reasonable reliance. She can thus use it against anyone who ever made a false statement in business. Think of it as a New York version of §1001 regarding false statements to the Federal government, but with even greater scope, and even greater ability to be applied arbitrarily against one's enemies...