Trump Tower exposed as 'something of a fraud': Forbes
According to a new report from Forbes, New York Attorney General Letitia James' lawsuit against former President Donald Trump has exposed his flagship building, New York City's Trump Tower, as being "something of a fraud."
Specifically, Forbes reporter Dan Alexander zeroes in on the fact that Trump Tower plays a central role in James' claims about Trump manipulating the values of his assets for tax purposes.
What's more, Alexander recently did some of his own scrutiny of Trump Tower and made some interesting findings.
"Property records show that the real estate mogul has been lying about the financial performance of the building since it first opened in 1983," he writes. "Tax and lending documents indicate that Trump lied about the square footage of the office and retail space at the base of the property."
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As if that weren't enough, Forbes has also published an audio recording dating back to 2015 showing that Trump "was personally involved in the efforts to lie about the value of Trump Tower’s commercial space."
The heart of the matter lies in Trump's 2015 valuation of Trump Tower as being worth $881 million, which Alexander writes was achieved through a mixture of lying about the building's square footage and lying about the number of square feet within that exaggerated total that were viable as retail and office space.
Taken all together, Alexander writes, and Trump "inflated the value of his property by an estimated $400 million."
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