Trump real estate empire under threat after fraud ruling; ex-US president to visit Detroit autoworkers – US politics live | Donald Trump

A New York judge ruled Tuesday that Donald Trump committed financial fraud by overstating the value of his assets to broker deals and obtain financing.

The ruling is an acceleration of the case the New York attorney general Letitia James has been building against Trump since 2019, that the former president fudged financial statements and inflated his net worth up to $2.2bn more than the actual figure.

In a dramatic step just days before the trial is set to start, New York supreme court justice Arthur Engoron issued a partial ruling largely agreeing with James. He also ordered the cancellation of New York business certificates of all companies related to Trump and his two sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, making it difficult for Trump to continue running his real estate business in the state.

A trial is still set to start 2 October, where Engoron will decide whether Trump, his allies and his companies will have to pay the $250m in monetary damages James is asking for. Trump’s lawyers say they will appeal the judge’s ruling.

My colleague Lauren Aratani reported five key takeaway’s from Tuesday’s ruling.

New Jersey senator Bob Menendez arrived in a federal courthouse in Manhattan to face corruption charges, as he resisted growing calls among his fellow Democrats to resign.

Menendez and his wife, Nadine, who is also charged in the case, said nothing as they arrived at the lower Manhattan courthouse on Wednesday morning.

Under an indictment unsealed last week, the couple were accused of using his seat in the Senate, as chair of the foreign relations committee, to benefit the government of Egypt. Prosecutors described how large sums of cash were found at Menendez’s New Jersey home, as well as actual gold bars. A Mercedes-Benz car is also at issue. Three businessmen have also been charged.

Menendez his wife are scheduled to be arraigned in the morning. A third co-defendant, Wael Hana, was arraigned on Tuesday and pleaded not guilty.

The United Auto Workers president, Shawn Fain, who appeared beside Joe Biden at a picket line in Michigan on Tuesday, said he will not meet with Donald Trump during his upcoming visit to Detroit.

In an interview with CNN on Tuesday evening, Fain said it was a “pathetic irony” that Trump would hold a rally for union members at a non-union business. He said:

I see no point in meeting with him because I don’t think the man has any bit of care about what our workers stand for, what the working class stands for. He serves a billionaire class, and that’s what’s wrong with this country.

US soldier Travis King, who fled to North Korea in July, is in American custody after being expelled by Pyongyang into China, according to US officials.

North Korea’s KCNA state news agency said King had been expelled after he confessed to illegally entering the country. It said the soldier harboured ill feelings over inhumane treatment and racial discrimination within the US army.

A US official confirmed that King had been transferred to American custody in China, but did not offer further details.

Pte King entered North Korea on 18 July during a tour of the border village of Panmunjom, US officials have said. He had served nearly two months in a South Korean prison for assault before being released to be sent home to Fort Bliss, Texas, where he faced possible additional military disciplinary actions and discharge from the service.

He is the first known American to be held in North Korea in nearly five years.

Donald Trump will skip the second Republican presidential debate on Wednesday and instead visit striking autoworkers in Detroit, where he will attempt to position himself as an ally of Michigan’s working-class voters by promising to raise wages and protect jobs if elected to a second term.

Trump, the clear frontrunner for the GOP primary race, will speak before a crowd of current and former United Auto Workers (UAW) members at Drake Enterprises, a nonunion manufacturer in Clinton Township, about a half-hour outside Detroit.

A Trump campaign radio ad released last week in Detroit and Toledo, Ohio, praised autoworkers and said the former president has “always had their back”.

David Smith

Donald Trump’s persona as a successful tycoon was always more about illusion than reality.

In The Apprentice, he was effectively an actor reading from a script in a fantasy board room. In real life, it later transpired, he shied away from saying “You’re fired!” to anyone’s face at the White House, preferring to delegate the unpleasant task.

Trump’s origin story was told in his bestselling 1987 book The Art of the Deal. But the man who ghostwrote it, Tony Schwartz, describes him as an emperor with no clothes. He told the Guardian in 2020:

There’s nothing more important to Trump than being seen as very, very rich, which is why he’s expended so much effort in trying to claim a net worth far beyond what he actually was worth.

A series of tax revelations and reports have shown that Trump is not as rich as he would like everyone to believe. But the exaggerations are very on brand for a man who claimed to have the biggest inauguration crowd ever, that voter fraud is rampant and that Democrats are so pro-abortion they want to commit infanticide.

Fraud ruling is a bitter blow to Donald Trump’s successful tycoon persona

David Smith

For years Donald Trump was the host of The Apprentice, a reality TV show in which contestants vied for a management job within his organisation and he would deliver the verdict: “You’re fired!”

It cemented the image of Trump as an assertive chief executive who had conquered New York, an image that still proves seductive to millions of voters who want him to run the US like a business. But like much else about the 45th US president, it was all a lie.

On Tuesday a judge found that Trump’s business empire was built, at least in part, on rampant fraud. Noting that Trump’s lawyers were effectively asking the court not to believe its own eyes, Engoron quoted the Marx brothers’ film Duck Soup:

Well, who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?

The decision will make it easier for the New York state attorney general, Letitia James, to establish damages at a civil trial due to start next week; she is seeking a penalty of about $250m.

Engoron ordered the cancellation of certificates that let some of Trump’s businesses, including the Trump Organization, operate in New York – just possibly the beginning of the end of his empire.

If the judge’s scathing decision withstands an appeal from Trump’s lawyers, it will be the first time a government investigation into the former president has resulted in punishment. It will also deal the biggest blow yet to his persona as a successful tycoon.

Donald Trump’s legal team had previously asked the judge to dismiss the case against him, arguing New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, lacked authority to file the lawsuit because there was no evidence the public was harmed by Trump’s actions, and that many of the allegations were beyond the statute of limitations.

But Judge Arthur Engoron indicated last week he was not inclined to be sympathetic, rebuking Trump’s lawyers for making “frivolous arguments” and stating he was considering sanctions against them.

Chris Kise, who is also representing Trump in a federal indictment in Florida over the former president’s handling of classified documents after leaving the White House, argued:

What is happening here is what happens every day in complex business transactions.

Engoron was not swayed. He said:

The fact that no one was hurt does not mean the case gets dismissed.

In his ruling on Tuesday, he granted a motion by James seeking sanctions against Trump’s legal team for repeatedly making arguments already rejected, fining five attorneys $7,500 each.

Good morning, US politics blog readers. On Tuesday, a judge found that Donald Trump’s business empire was built, at least in part, on rampant fraud. Justice Arthur Engoron of the New York state court in Manhattan said Trump and his adult sons, Eric and Donald Jr, wildly inflated the value of his properties to hoodwink banks, insurers and others.

The ruling came in a civil lawsuit brought by Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, days before the start of a non-jury trial that will hear accusations that Trump, and the Trump Organization, lied for a decade about asset values and his net worth to get better terms on bank loans and insurance.

James has said Trump had effectively engaged in a “bait and switch” operation, inflating his net worth by as much as $2.23bn, and by one measure as much as $3.6bn, on annual financial statements given to banks and insurers.

Assets whose values were inflated include his office buildings and golf courses, his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and his penthouse apartment at Trump Tower in New York, which he claimed was 30,000 sq ft, nearly three times its actual size, resulting in an overvaluation of as much as $207m.

The decision will make it easier for James to establish damages at a civil trial due to start next week; she is seeking a penalty of about $250m. Engoron ordered the cancellation of certificates that let some of Trump’s businesses, including the Trump Organization, operate in New York – just possibly the beginning of the end of his empire.

If the judge’s scathing decision withstands an appeal from Trump’s lawyers, it will be the first time a government investigation into the former president has resulted in punishment. It will also deal the biggest blow yet to his persona as a successful tycoon.

Meanwhile, the former president is expected in Detroit today to address autoworkers. His visit comes a day after Biden made a rousing speech, telling striking workers they deserved higher pay.

Here’s what else we’re watching today:

• 9am Eastern time: The House convenes. SEC chair Gary Gensler will testify before the financial services committee at 10am. The ways and means committee will meet in an executive session to discuss releasing new Hunter Biden/IRS whistleblower info at 10.30am.

• 10am: The Senate meets.

• 1.30pm: Joe Biden will convene a meeting with his advisers on science and tech in San Francisco.

• 1.30pm: Republican senators Lindsey Graham, John Kennedy, Thom Tillis, Marsha Blackburn, Ted Cruz, Katie Britt and John Cornyn will hold a news conference about the border.

• 2pm: Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer will hold his weekly news conference, where he may deliver remarks on embattled New Jersey senator Bob Menendez’s political future.

• 8pm: Donald Trump is expected to skip the second GOP primary debate and instead address striking auto workers in Michigan.

• 9pm: Republicans will hold their second presidential debate at Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Seven candidates are set to take part – Florida governor Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, South Carolina senator Tim Scott, entrepeneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former vice-president Mike Pence, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie and North Dakota governor Doug Burgum.