trump empire. and what he found than probably wouldn t shock anyone today. but back then it was a big deal. tim o brien discovered that donald trump s much lauded business excellence was actually far less impressive than trump had anyone to believe. he found that donald trump had been significantly overstating his net worth by billions of dollars. that he wasn t remotely close to being a billionaire. and so in 2005, tim o brien wrote a book exposing donald trump s prolific lies, and exaggerations about his wealth. donald trump reported by suing time o brien for defamation a year later, and that is how we got to see what it s like when donald trump testifies under oath. quoting from the transcript, attorney, mr. trump, have you always been completely truthful in your public statements about your net worth of properties? trump, i try. attorney, have you ever not been truthful? trump, my net worth blocked away, and it goes up and down with a market and with attitudes and w
new information about the fbi s search of donald trump s florida home. trump world has now reportedly started speculating about who in the former presidents orbit, might have talked to the fbi, and what it could mean for the investigation. we will have more on that later. but let s go back in time a little. to 2005. more than a decade before donald trump s first run for president, before he started fighting with racist birtherism conspiracies, back when he was just a real estate guy, with a funny hairdo, and a reality tv show, that year the intrepid journalist, tim o brien, the guy on the left, the side to side digging into the so-called trump empire. and what he found then probably wouldn t shock anyone today. but back then it was a big deal. tim o brien discovered that donald trump s much lauded business success was actually far less impressive than trump had anyone to believe. he found that donald trump had been significantly overstating his net worth by billions of dollar
Today, donald trump once again found himself giving sworn testimony. this time it was a new york attorney generals investigation into whether trump knowingly lied about the values of these various properties in order to pay less in taxes. but this time, donald trump didn t cite his feelings or his great memory, or dangerous fruit. this time he took a different strategy. just after donald trump arrived at the new york attorneys general of us at 9 am this morning, donald trump released a statement quote, i once asked, if you are innocent, why are you taking the fifth amendment? now i know the answer to that question. when your family, your company, and all the people in your orbit have become the target of an unfounded politically motivated witch hunt, supported by lawyers, prosecutors, and the fake news media, you have no choice. under the advice of my counsel, i declined to answer the questions under the rights and privileges afforded to every citizen under the united states
Reporting and your analysis, susanne craig, pulitzer prize winning investigative journalist for the new york times. now to for the right down with all this mean for trump, legally, let s turn to joyce vance. former united s attorney for the northern district of alabama, co-host of the sisters in law podcast. joyce it was good to see you. thank you for being with, us you heard my competition with susanne about why donald trump would invoke the fifth amendment in this trial which is largely about his business. but there is something that susanne was hinting at and that there is a lot donald trump can say because he s a big talker that could be held against him. and he may be worried about other cases in addition to this particular one which he was deposed. well looking at it from the perspective of trump s lawyers, this is the sort of client that you do not want to give free range to in a deposition. you want to do everything that you can do to constrain his testimony. so the statement
Million. late last year don trump was once again deposed under oath the first time even depose since leaving the white house. that possession came in a case brought by protesters who said that they were assaulted by trump security at the 2015 campaign rally. in that deposition, trump tried to justify telling his supporters to quote, knock the crap out of protesters, because of dangerous fruit. quote, they were going to throw fruit. we were threatened, we had a threat. it s very dangerous stuff. you can get killed with those things. i want to tap he will be ready because we were put on alert that they were going to do fruit. and some fruit is a lot worse than tomatoes are bad by the way. but it s very dangerous. they were going to hit, they were going to hit very hard. so dangerous. this is how it s gone in the past. every time donald trump had to testify under oath and now