Trump lawyers rip ex-accountant for claiming memory loss 90 times at NY civil fraud trial

Donald Trump’s lawyers slammed the former president’s accountant for claiming memory loss over 90 times during nearly three days of tense cross-examination.

Donald Trump’s lawyers on Thursday ripped the former president’s accountant for claiming “I don’t know” or “I don’t remember” dozens of times during his testimony at trial in the New York attorney general’s $250 million civil fraud case.

Donald Bender – a partner at accounting firm Mazars USA – had been under tense cross-examination by Trump’s attorneys since Tuesday afternoon when they called him out over his apparent memory loss during the final hours on the witness stand.

“In the past three days, you testified ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I don’t remember’ over 89 times,'” Trump lawyer Jesus Suarez said to Bender Thursday morning in Manhattan Supreme Court.

Bender appeared flustered as Suarez and another Trump lawyer pelted him with questions as they claimed he was evading their inquiry.

Clifford Robert, the other Trump attorney, later repeated a similar question as the one posed by Suarez, saying: “Over the last few days, you have said ‘I don’t recall’ or ‘I don’t remember’ over 90 times?”

“I believe that’s right,” Bender admitted.

Bender occasionally tried to defuse the obvious tension and deflect the lawyers’ questions by cracking jokes.

At one point, Robert asked Bender to speak into the microphone and the accountant replied: “I am as close as I can be without kissing it.”

On Wednesday, Justice Arthur Engoron – who is overseeing the trial – lost his cool on Trump’s team, saying the attorneys were needlessly drawing out Bender’s testimony.

Trump lawyer Alina Habba on Wednesday said: “We haven’t got one answer from him … he has no memory as we sit here.”

After a back and forth with Trump’s side over the apparent delay tactics, Engoron slammed his hand on the bench and said “This is ridiculous!” and told the attorneys to stop wasting time.

When Bender’s testimony finally wrapped up around noon Thursday, Jeffrey McConney, the former Trump Org comptroller and a defendant in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ case, got on the stand.

McConney – who retired from the real estate company in February with the promise of a $500,000 severance package – said that he handled Trump Org valuations for the yearly “Statements of Financial Condition,” which were prepared by Mazars.

James alleges that Trump lied for a decade on these statements, exaggerating the worth of his assets by billions for his vanity – to climb Forbes list of billionaires – and to save on loans and insurance.

Trump and his sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr. – who are also defendants in the case – all claim they had nothing to do with preparing these statements.

But McConney said that Trump, 77, had the final say on asset valuations that went into the statements.

McConney and former Trump Org Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg would review the accountants’ compilation report for Weisselberg to sign off on.

But McConney admitted that he hand-wrote “DJT to get final review,” on one of these reports from 2014.

“Did you believe Trump would get final approval of each financial statement you were responsible for preparing?” Andrew Amer, a lawyer with the AG’s Office asked.

“Yes,” McConney said, noting this may have changed after Trump became president in 2016.

The ex-president and Eric Trump attended the first two days of trial and the first half of trial on Wednesday but were not present Thursday.

That didn’t stop the duo from taking to Trump’s social media platform Truth Social and blasting the AG’s case.

The real estate tycoon denies the allegations and claims that he’s the victim of a political witch hunt.

The defendants are not required to attend trial as they would be in a criminal case.