Ms. James spoke to reporters after leaving the courthouse, saying the "personal attacks" don't bother her.
"This is our last day in our case against Donald Trump for persistent and repeated fraud, illegality. This case has never been about politics, personal vendetta, or name-calling," she said.
"This case is about the facts and the law, and Mr. Donald Trump violated the law. And as you know, the judge has already found that he violated the law for repeated fraud for a period of years."
Ms. James said she was proud of the case the state presented and argued the evidence was in the state's favor.
"The fact is this trial has shown and we have produced evidence about the scope, the scale, the depth, the breadth of the illegality, the fraud, that personally enriched Donald Trump and his family," she said.
"I want to thank the judge, I want to thank my team, and I want to thank opposing counsel. But at the day the point is simple: No matter how powerful you are, no matter how rich you are, nobody is above the law, and that the law applies to all of us, equally and fairly," she added. "I trust that justice will be done and I'm confident in that. And I'm extremely proud of the case that we've put on."
She did not take questions.
Mr. Amer pulled up testimony from Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., both trustees and executive vice presidents of Trump Organization, and argued they took on the responsibility of ensuring accurate SFCs after President Trump transfered his authority of the organization over to the trust.
"The court should find they were fully aware Allen Weisselberg and Jeffrey McConney schemed to inflate values," he said.
Mr. Amer argued that Mr. McConney had intentionally misrepresented several properties, thus enhancing their value.
A number of rent stabilized units in Manhattan had been represented with market price valuations in the SFCs.
"Now, defendants argue that just because a unit is subject to rent stabilization laws doesn't mean it can't be sold. What we all know as New Yorkers is that no one gives up a rent stablized apartment for free, it comes at a cost," Mr. Amer argued.
State attorney Andy Amer said during the trial the state established a pattern that was sufficient to show intent to defraud.
"Was there a pattern of fraud? Does the defendant exercise day to day control over the fraudulent conduct? Have a motive to engage in the fraud? Has the defendant engaged in acts of concealment to cover up the fraud? Has the defendant engaged in acts of deception, which can include being on the stand and being evasive?" Mr. Amer said. "During the trial we established that the defendants engaged in fraud that checks all these boxes."
He argued the evidence toward intention was "beyond even clear and convincing, it is overwhelming and conclusive."
President Trump said he will also attend his federal criminal cases and maintained he has done nothing wrong.
"Well the documents case, just here they're trying to exonerate Biden, and he didn't have the Presidential Records Act, I do," he said, referencing a statute that governs records kept by presidents.
"I did nothing wrong," he said. "What [President Biden] did, a lot of people say is substantially wrong. You can't have two tiers of justice here in this country.
Next week, President Trump faces yet another civil trial in New York, in a case brought by writer E. Jean Carroll, and he said during his new conference he plans to attend.
In 2019, Ms. Carroll accused President Trump of sexually assaulting her in a Bergdorf Goodman in the mid 1990s.
President Trump claimed the case was sponsored by Democrat operatives.
Mr. Wallace claimed the multiple loans Trump Organization got spoke to its lack of cash.
"They couldn't afford to spend more on the borrowing for the properties, there wasn't enough cash to do it all," he argued.
"By 2017, Trump's generating cash flows of just $2 million, obviously below the Deutsche Bank threshold [requirement for the loan]. As you can see, the cash position would have remained negative," Mr. Wallace argued.
Defense attorney Chris Kise objected to state attorney Kevin Wallace comparing the defendants to being on "murderer's row."
Justice Engoron asked Mr. Wallace if he was accusing the defendants of being murderers and moved on from the turn of phrase.
Mr. Wallace sought to rebut the defense's argument that the SFCs and disclaimers indicated transparency rather than intent to defraud.
President Trump responded to a question about how his time was split between campaigning and legal cases saying the cases were politically motivated.
"Well see my legal issues, every one of them, every one, are all set up by crooked Joe Biden, every one of them," he said.
"They're doing it for election interference," he said. "And in a way I guess you can consider it part of the campaign. They are doing this. It's never been done like this in this country."
He took questions from reporters about other cases; in Washington, he is being prosecuted for actions on Jan. 6, and is appealing to dismiss the case based on presidential immunity.
"On immunity, very simple, if a President of the United States does not have immunity, he will not be very effective, because he wouldn't be able to do anything," he said.
"It'll mean he'll be prosecuted, strongly prosecuted perhaps, as soon as he leaves office, by the opposing party. So a president of the United States—I'm not talking about just me, I'm talking any president—needs to have presidential immunity," he added.
"Let's remember that before I walked into court, we had already lost—before witnesses, before experts, and do I think any of it mattered? I certainly hope so," said Trump attorney Alina Habba, referencing a summary judgment Justice Engoron issued a week before the trial that found President Trump liable for fraud.
"For anyone that has been in the courtroom the last 11 weeks, you heard that there was not one fact against President Trump," she said. "There was not one piece of paper that showed anyone committed fraud."
She said a consumer fraud statute was "wrongfully used" against President Trump and every one of his employees.
Mr. Wallace argued that several of the defense's expert witness testimonies were "simply not relevant at this point" because President Trump was ruled liable for fraud before the trial begin.
"This is the problem with all the defense testimony in this case: not relevant," he said.
Five minutes away, Trump attorney Alina Habba said much the same, blaming the summary judgment.
Mr. Wallace said the Trump Organization SFCs were "false every year" from 2011 to 2021, as the judge affirmed in a summary judgment, and "that was the baseline" from the beginning of the trial.
"They cannot argue ... that unsold units at Trump Park Avenue weren't rent stablized, or that he didn't have appraisers for 40 Wall Street," Mr. Wallace said.
"Every individual defendant was acting knowingly and intelligently," he said. "There was no suggestion this was a mistake. To the contrary, Donald Trump says he approves of what they did. If anything, the valuations they came up were too low for it. We certainly do not hear that the numbers they used were accurate."
State attorney Kevin Wallace began closing arguments by saying the state would not structure their arguments to counter the defense.
"Some of the defense arguments have already been rejected by this court," Mr. Wallace said. "We have not heard from the defense any new facts because the most important facts are undisputed."
President Trump is set to hold a news conference at 2:30 p.m. at 40 Wall Street, also known as the Trump Building, about five minutes from the courthouse.
State attorneys will give closing arguments from 2:15 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., closing out the trial.
Justice Engoron said the earliest he would issue judgment is the end of January.
President Trump summarized his courtroom remarks to the press after the court went on break.
"They owe me damages for what they've done," he said. "We have a great company, we're an innocent company, we did everything right."
"They have no witnesses against us other than Michael Cohen, who's a discredited felon, and no witnesses against us whatsoever," he said. "They only have one piece of paper. What we run is a great company, that's been proven, very highly successful company."
President Trump accused the attorney general of election interference, leading to Justice Engoron asking Mr. Kise to "control your client."
"Without all that, your honor, all these days and months and years and millions and millions of pages they found nothing," President Trump said. "And now they come in and she says I want a $250 million fine, now $370 million."
President Trump wrapped up his statement shortly after.
"Your honor, the financial statements were perfect," President Trump said. "The banks got all their money back, the banks are happy as can be."
"I spoke to an executive at Zurich, they said, ‘You didn't defraud us,'" he added. "There wasn't one witness against us."
He again described the case as a "political witch hunt," and said he should be the one receiving damages "for what they've taken this company through."
Mr. Kise asked Justice Engoron to let President Trump make a brief statement in court.
The judge greenlit a five-minute statement.
Attorney for defendants Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. argued his clients had nothing to do with the Trump Organization's SFCs.
"They signed these certifications like any executive of a company would, relying on the work of others, an outside accounting firm that was paid millions and millions of dollars," he said.
"We stand behind the statements of financial condition, that they were accurate in all material facts," he said. "But even if there was a mistake ... it's absurd, you shouldn't lose your life because of it."
Defense attorney Alina Habba said that in the past 44 days of trial, the attorney general did not prove her case, which she described as an "agenda."
"If Trump Organization, if Donald Trump, if his employees wanted to commit fraud, why would they select Deutsche Bank, Zurich Insurance, some of the most sophisticated, highly regulated companies in the world? It makes no sense, and frankly, there is evidence of it," Ms. Habba said.
Ms. Habba said Mr. Weisselberg and Mr. McConney were used as "pawns" because the attorney general could not get to President Trump.
State attorneys are asking for a broad range of penalties, which Mr. Kise argued was "grossly disproportionate."
"It must bear some rational relationship to the events and issues," he said. The unlawful activity alleged have nothing to do with commercial real estate, real estate agent impersonation, or problematic transactions, he argued.
"The attorney general claims there's this need to protect counterparties in the marketplace. They haven't brought in anyone to demonstrate [that]," he said.
Defense attorney Chris Kise argued President Trump's business has been a boon to the city.
"These are success stories. Rather than praising President Trump for his business success, we have an attorney general coming after him, using a consumer statute in a victimless crime," Mr. Kise argued.
His client helped build and develop this city, and others, he argued, and the banks recognized that value too.
Mr. Kise said the attorney general tried applying similar arguments in a case against ExxonMobil, and argued that not only was it unsuccessfully legally but hurt the state.
"They tried this in Exxon and there was the same problem. Guess what happened? Not only did they lose, Exxon left," Mr. Kise said.
In 2019, a state judge ruled in favor of Exxon in a civil case brought by Ms. James that argued the company engaged in fraud through how it accounted for the cost of climate change regulations in its financial statements.
The statutes used by the attorney general require proving both intent to defraud and materiality, and Mr. Kise argued materiality is at the center of the case.
Mr. Kise argued that materiality is "not determined based on the court's view," or the state attorneys' view.
"It's not material because they say so, I say so, you say so," Mr. Kise said. "Professor Bartov told you, materiality is what makes a difference to the user, here Deutsch Bank."
Another property that featured prominently in the trial was President Trump's penthouse triplex because it had been covered in an investigative Forbes piece.
The 10,000-square-foot private apartment had been listed as 30,000 square feet in the financial statements even though the floor plans showed otherwise, resulting in a valuation well upwards of $100 million.
"The number's wrong, they fixed it immediately, and there's no problem," Mr. Kise argued. "There is no concealment, none of that is evidence of intent."
Mr. Kise argued that Michael Cohen, former personal lawyer for President Trump, was introduced by the attorney general as a main witness in the case.
"[Mr. Cohen] is a serial liar," Mr. Kise said. He recounted the several admissions Mr. Cohen made during his testimony to lying under oath—to Congress, to a federal judge, and again in the courtroom for the current trial.
Some of the statements were new, including an unprompted admission that Mr. Cohen lied to a federal judge when accepting a plea bargain when he claimed he was not guilty of the tax evasion he pleaded guilty to.
Justice Engoron interrupted the defense's closing arguments, taking issue with Mr. Kise's repeated claims that the testimonies he referenced were "unrebutted."
Mr. Kise said he disagreed; either a witness was rebutted or he wasn't.
John Shubin, an expert witness in land-use planning, entitlement, and zoning, had testified to the use of Mar-a-Lago as a single-family home.
Defense attorney Christopher Kise argued that no generally accepted accounting practices (GAAP) were found to have been violated in the Trump Organization SFCs, a claim that has been the foundation of the case.
Far from inflated, the SFCs were actually understated, Mr. Kise argued.
"There’s no question that the brand value of President Trump is worth billions, and the brand is not included in that FCOS as a stand-alone asset," he said.
Former President Donald Trump arrived at the 40 Wall Street courthouse in Manhattan for closing arguments of his civil trial, telling reporters he would be holding a news conference after the arguments.
"I want to speak, I want to make a summation,” he said. “The judge is not letting me make the summation because I’m going to bring up things he doesn’t want to hear.”
While New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron had barred him from making courtroom remarks a day ago, nothing prevents President Trump from making public statements outside the trial about his case.
Meanwhile, the defense is expected to argue that the case premise is entirely flawed.
President Trump has often claimed outside the courtroom that between half and 90 percent of the case falls outside the statute of limitations. Defense attorneys have argued that seven out of 10 of the transactions in the case closed prior to July 13, 2014, and are time-barred.
They have also repeatedly argued that the attorney general failed to show any intent to defraud or material misstatements in the SFCs.
Attorneys with New York Attorney General Letitia James's office are expected to highlight the involvement of defendants former President Donald Trump, former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, former Trump Organization comptroller Jeff McConney, and Trump Organization executive vice presidents Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. in the preparation of company statements of financial condition (SFCs) from 2011 to 2021.
The SFCs are not official or mandatory financial documents, but summaries of President Trump's net worth year to year, which served as a marketing piece when Trump Organization sought to do deals.
The judge had ruled President Trump liable for fraud in a summary judgment a week before the trial, finding he inflated his net worth by up to $2.2 billion.
New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron indicated to attorneys on Jan. 10 that former President Donald Trump likely won’t participate in closing arguments for his civil fraud trial.
President Trump’s lawyers, who have already appealed unsuccessfully for a directed verdict on the grounds of prosecutorial bias, will make their case on Jan. 11.
Judge Arthur Engoron denied a request from President Donald Trump to delay the closing arguments in the New York civil case.
Chris Kise, one of Mr. Trump’s attorneys, asked the justice to postpone the closing arguments to Jan. 29, because of Mr. Trump is dealing with a “deeply personal family matter.”
The state attorneys and defense team in former President Donald J. Trump’s civil fraud trial will present closing arguments in a lower Manhattan courtroom on Jan. 11.
President Trump will also attend the hearing, his second court appearance this week mere days before the Iowa caucuses.
Each side hopes to persuade New York State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron to issue a ruling consistent with their view of whether the former president and current presidential candidate is liable for misrepresentations in the statements of financial condition (SFCs) presented to lenders over the past decade.
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