On Thursday, The Epoch Times posted an article about the ongoing trial of President Trump in New York. It seems that the evidence doesn’t fit the charges.
The article reports:
“Financial reporting misconduct is a very important part of any course that I teach,” said Mr. Bartov (Eli Bartov, professor of accounting at NYU’s Stern School of Business and an award-winning researcher,). Being able to detect financial fraud early can be rather profitable, he explained, such as the famous case of Enron.
…Though the judge allowed him to testify as an expert in financial accounting and credit analysis, it came after lengthy objection from the state attorneys, who argued the professor had expertise in valuing publicly traded companies, not Deutsche Bank’s decisions. Mr. Kise commented that the state attorneys have objected to this one witness more than any of the others, “which tells me they’re terrified of this witness.”
Mr. Bartov said that after reviewing the lawsuit against the Trump Organization, “the most important evidence is the credit reports of Deutsche Bank.”
Those reports, rather than the Trump statements of financial condition (SFoCs), “really tell you the whole story,” he explained. “You can spin it any way you want, but everything is there.”
Mr. Bartov, who teaches students how to do credit reports just like the Deutsche Bank credit report on Trump Organization, said the person who prepared this report may well have once been his student.
“I am not going to provide an independent valuation of these because it’s not necessary, not because I can’t do it,” he explained. “My main finding is there is no evidence whatsoever of any accounting fraud.”
“The SFoCs over the years were not materially mistaken,” Mr. Bartov said.
The statement prompted the judge to ask if he meant that the attorney general’s “complaint had no merit.”
“This is absolutely my opinion,” he said. “You read the complaint: the complaint has numerous allegations of valuations of GAAP [generally accepted accounting principles]. There is no specific reference to a provision of GAAP that was violated.”
Mr. Bartov concluded:
Mr. Bartov, who teaches students how to do credit reports just like the Deutsche Bank credit report on Trump Organization, said the person who prepared this report may well have once been his student.
“I am not going to provide an independent valuation of these because it’s not necessary, not because I can’t do it,” he explained. “My main finding is there is no evidence whatsoever of any accounting fraud.”
“The SFoCs over the years were not materially mistaken,” Mr. Bartov said.
The statement prompted the judge to ask if he meant that the attorney general’s “complaint had no merit.”
“This is absolutely my opinion,” he said. “You read the complaint: the complaint has numerous allegations of valuations of GAAP [generally accepted accounting principles]. There is no specific reference to a provision of GAAP that was violated.”
Is the jury listening? Will the mainstream media report this? The answers to those two questions will tell us (if we don’t know already) whether or not this is a witchhunt.
