Donald Trump's former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen has testified that he manipulated the values of the former US president's real estate properties to match "whatever number Mr. Trump told us".
Testifying as a key witness in New York Attorney General Letitia James' civil fraud case against Mr Trump, Cohen said Mr Trump tasked him and other former Trump Organization executives with doctoring financial statements to boost the value of the company's holdings and secure better real estate premiums.
"He would say, 'I'm actually not worth $4.5 billion, I'm really worth more like 6 (billion)," Cohen said, adding that Mr Trump arrived at the valuations of his assets "arbitrarily".
Cohen said he and one-time Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg would mark up line items by hand using red ink in Mr Trump's financial statements after he told them the numbers were too low.
The testimony came during the fourth week of a trial in New York state court in Manhattan stemming from a lawsuit that Ms James, a Democrat, brought against Mr Trump and his family company last September.
The suit, which could break up Mr Trump's business empire, alleges Mr Trump inflated the value of his properties.
Mr Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has denied wrongdoing and defended the valuations of his properties, saying the case is a "fraud" and a political witch hunt.
Today's testimony marked a highly-anticipated reunion of the allies-turned-bitter-foes.
Mr Trump initially leaned back in his chair with his arms folded and stared intently at Cohen as he testified, but spent most of the day hunched over the defendant's table, occasionally watching Cohen and speaking to his lawyers.
Speaking to reporters outside the courtroom during the trial's lunch break, Mr Trump called Cohen a "liar" and said he was "not worried at all about his testimony".
Cohen, who once said he would "take a bullet" for Mr Trump, turned on his onetime boss in 2018, when pleaded guilty to a campaign finance violation and lying to Congress about Mr Trump's business dealings in Russia.
Cohen's testimony during a 2019 Congressional probe of Mr Trump's finances was the impetus for Ms James' lawsuit.
In an apparent effort to head off expected attacks by Mr Trump's lawyers on Cohen's credibility, Colleen Faherty, a lawyer for the attorney general's office, began her questioning of Cohen by reviewing his criminal history.
"I did that at the direction of, in concert with and for the benefit of Donald Trump," Cohen said on the stand, referring to his false congressional testimony.
Cohen began a three-year prison sentence in 2019 but was released to home confinement the following year during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Prosecutors never accused Trump of criminal wrongdoing stemming from his business dealings with Russia.
Cohen said Trump signed off on all final insurance coverage decisions and attended meetings with brokers, though he would intentionally join once they were mostly done.
The former president has occasionally appeared in court over the past month, complaining in inflammatory remarks to reporters that it is a distraction from his campaign.
He arrived yesterday following a campaign stop in New Hampshire and just days after being fined $5,000 by Justice Arthur Engoron, the judge overseeing the case, for violating a gag order.
In September, before the trial began, Justice Engoron found that Trump fraudulently inflated his net worth and ordered the dissolution of companies that control crown jewels of his real estate portfolio, including Trump Tower in Manhattan. That ruling is on hold while Mr Trump appeals.
The trial largely concerns damages. Ms James is seeking at least $250 million (€235 million) in fines, a permanent ban against Mr Trump and his sons Donald Jr and Eric from running businesses in New York and a five-year commercial real estate ban against Mr Trump and the Trump Organization.
Ms James' civil suit is one of many legal woes Trump faces as he campaigns for the presidency.
He has pleaded not guilty to four criminal indictments, including federal cases tied to efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and the removal of government documents from the White House.
