BIDEN ‘BRIBERY’ CHARGE
A JUDGE last night ruled against Donald Trump in a civil fraud case and ordered the former US President, his company and associates to pay $364m (€340m).
The tycoon was also banned from running businesses in New York and applying for loans for three years.
Judge Arthur Engoron had already ruled Trump inflated his wealth on financial statements given to banks, insurers and other institutions in a bid to make deals and secure loans.
New York Attorney General Letitia James was looking for Trump and other defendants to be fined $370m (€343m).
Trump’s lawyers had said even before the verdict that they would appeal.
His lawyer Alina Habba said in a statement: “This verdict is a manifest injustice — plain and simple. It is the culmination of a multi-year, politically fuelled witch hunt that was designed to ‘take down Donald Trump’ before Letitia James ever stepped foot into the Attorney General’s office.”
Trump’s sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, who run the Trump Organization together, have each been found liable to pay $4m (€3.7m).
AN FBI informant has been charged with fabricating a multimilliondollar bribery scheme involving US President
Joe Biden, his son Hunter and a Ukrainian energy company.
The claim is central to the Republican impeachment inquiry in Congress.
Allen Weisselberg, the former chief operating officer of the Trump Organization, is liable for $1m (€0.9m).
The New York Attorney General’s office estimated that Trump exaggerated his wealth by up to $3.6 billion (€3.3bn).
State lawyers claimed Trump used the inflated numbers to get lower insurance premiums and favourable loan terms, saving at least $168m (€155m) on interest.
The Republican presidential frontrunner testified on November 6 that his financial statements actually understated his net worth. During closing arguments in January, he decried the case as a “fraud on me.” It has already been a big week in court for Trump.
On Thursday, a different New York judge ruled that Trump will stand trial March 25 on charges that he falsified his company’s records as part of an effort to buy the silence of people with potentially embarrassing stories about alleged infidelity. Trump says he is innocent.
If the schedule holds, it will be the first of his four criminal cases to go to trial.
Alexander Smirnov falsely reported to the FBI in June 2020 that executives associated with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid
Hunter (inset) and
Joe Biden $5 million each in 2015 or 2016,
Banks
prosecutors said in an indictment.
Smirnov (43) told his handler an executive said he hired Hunter to “protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems”, according to court documents.