It's Wednesday. Today we'll look at the investigation by the Manhattan district attorney's office that is focusing on financial documents that Donald Trump and his company submitted when he applied for loans. We will also meet New York's newest championship team. |
 | | Cooper Neill for The New York Times |
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The prosecutors who are considering whether to charge Donald Trump with fraud are focusing on financial documents known as statements of financial condition. Trump presented the statements to Deutsche Bank and other potential lenders whenever he was looking for a loan for a hotel, a golf course or an office building. The documents could explain whether Trump inflated the value of his assets — and whether he misled his own accountants, who prepared the statements based on information Trump and his employees provided. |
Prosecutors from the office of the district attorney, Cyrus Vance Jr., have drilled down on the information that Trump's company gave the accounting firm, according to people with knowledge of questions that witnesses have been asked. Three of my colleagues — William K. Rashbaum, Ben Protess and Jonah E. Bromwich — write that if prosecutors seek an indictment, the case could turn on whether they can use the information to show in his dealings with his lenders, Trump's penchant for hyperbole crossed the line into fraud. |
Many businesses use statements of financial condition to record assets and liabilities. The public got a glimpse of Trump's when his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen released them in 2019, when he testified to Congress. The statements, issued as of June 30 every year, contained optimistic projections about the value of Trump's real estate business, along with disclaimers about the limitations of such information. |
The prosecutors, working with the office of the New York State attorney general, Letitia James, have looked into the possibility that Trump and his employees cherry-picked favorable information and ignored gloomy data. |
A spokeswoman for Trump's accounting firm, Mazars USA, declined to comment beyond saying that it could not discuss its clients or its work for them without their consent, and that Mazars remained "committed to fulfilling all of our professional and legal obligations." A lawyer for the firm, Jerry Bernstein, declined to elaborate. |
Trump did not assemble the data for the accountants personally, but the documents left no doubt about who was accountable for the content: "Donald J. Trump is responsible for the preparation and fair presentation of the financial statement in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America," his accountants wrote in a cover letter attached to the statements in 2011 and 2012. |
Yet the accountants also acknowledged they "have not audited or reviewed" the information and "do not express an opinion or provide any assurance about" it, a common caveat in statements of financial condition. The accountants disclosed that, while compiling the information for Trump, they had "become aware of departures from accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America." |
Given those caveats, Trump's lawyers could argue that no one, let alone sophisticated lenders, should have taken his valuations at face value. They could also that the lenders conducted their own analyses and concluded that he was a worthy borrower. |
It's mostly cloudy today in New York City, with light, variable wind in the morning and highs in the lower 50s. There is a chance of rain tonight. |
In effect until Dec. 24 (Christmas Eve). |
A new police commissioner |
Eric Adams, the incoming mayor, is expected to name a new police commissioner today: Keechant Sewell, the chief of detectives in Nassau County. She will be the first woman appointed to the job and will take over the nation's largest police force at a critical moment. |
Adams, in a statement, called her "a proven crime fighter with the experience and emotional intelligence to deliver both the safety New Yorkers need and the justice they deserve." A person close to Adams said he had been impressed by Sewell's confidence and competence, as well as her experience working undercover. Her interview process included a mock news conference about the shooting of an unarmed Black man by a white police officer, the person said. |
Sewell, 49, has spent 23 years with the Nassau Police Department, which has about 2,400 uniformed officers, less than a tenth of the 35,000 employed by the New York Police Department. Sewell has been viewed as a rising star in policing circles, said Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, which advises departments on best practices. |
Banning gas heat and stoves; ferrying packages |
Two developments to watch for today: A ban on gas-powered stoves, space heaters and hot-water tanks in new buildings, and an announcement about delivering packages to Manhattan on ferries. |
The ban on gas-powered devices is expected to be approved by the City Council. It would apply only to new buildings, effectively requiring developers to plan for electric heating and cooking. The ban would take effect in 2023 for buildings under seven stories and in 2027 for taller buildings. |
The ferry plan would reduce truck congestion in tunnels and bridges. The idea is for a dedicated NY Waterway ferry to bring containers loaded with packages to the Downtown Manhattan Heliport from freight terminals in Bayonne, N.J., and Red Hook in Brooklyn. The containers would then be hauled to drop-off points around Manhattan for delivery to the customers who had ordered them. |
- Muhammad Aziz, a man exonerated in the assassination of Malcolm X, filed a lawsuit against New York State for at least $20 million in damages.
- Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo was ordered to turn over roughly $5.1 million in proceeds from his 2020 pandemic memoir, after a state ethics board found that he had run afoul of ethics laws.
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Did you notice? A New York City team won a championship. |
 | | John Minchillo/Associated Press |
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A New York City team won a championship the other day. |
And you thought that had not happened since the Giants beat the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI in 2012. |
The winning team was the New York City Football Club, one of the Metro area's two Major League Soccer franchises. As my colleague Joel Petterson wrote, N.Y.C.F.C. survived a penalty-kick shootout, 4-2, on the way to defeating the Portland Timbers. |
N.Y.C.F.C. has worked to break through the New York sports landscape without a stadium to call its own. The team has passionate fans — hundreds made it to Portland — and the match did not go unnoticed at City Hall, where Mayor Bill de Blasio gave the players keys to the city on Tuesday. |
But the championship match did not generate the same electricity as a Super Bowl. One soccer fan, Bret Gessner, 39, said he had gone to a couple of bars on the Upper West Side of Manhattan on Saturday and had been surprised how little excitement there was. "No one seemed to be bothered that New York was in a championship," Gessner said. N.Y.C.F.C. "completely flew under the radar." |
In tribute to a New York City institution, this week's Metropolitan Diaries offers readers' tales of encounters with Stephen Sondheim. |
I was waiting for a crosstown bus on East 49th Street near Second Avenue the day before Thanksgiving on my way to see a matinee of "Company." |
Stephen Sondheim's townhouse is across the street, and I noticed that the blinds in the second-story window were open. I don't know why, but I felt moved to get a better look. |
I crossed the street and was on the sidewalk just beneath that window when I saw Mr. Sondheim suddenly swing around in a chair and wave. |
Reflexively, I waved back. |
I realized later that he had probably been trying to get the attention of the driver of the Lincoln Town Car that had just pulled up. It all happened so fast. I had walked past his house many times in the 30 years I had lived in the neighborhood, and nothing like this had ever happened before. |
I went back to the bus stop. The driver locked the car and walked up the block. And Mr. Sondheim disappeared into his house. |
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. |
Isabella Paoletto, Jonah Candelario and Olivia Parker contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. |
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