Donald Trump told investigators in New York that he was too busy saving the world from “nuclear holocaust” to commit crimes.
The former president said in a sworn deposition stretching over seven hours in April that his efforts “saving millions of lives” kept him from running his company, which stands accused of fraud in a civil lawsuit filed by New York attorney general Letitia James, reported Insider.
“So you were too busy for the company?” said Kevin Wallace, a lawyer for the attorney general’s office.
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“In a way, yeah,” Trump said. “Yeah, I think you can say it. It’s another way of saying it. I was very busy. I was — I considered this the most important job in the world, saving millions of lives.”
“I think you would have nuclear holocaust if I didn’t deal with North Korea,” the ex-president added. “I think you would have a nuclear war, if I weren’t elected, and I think you might have a nuclear war now if you want to know the truth.”
The attorney general’s lawsuit alleges that the Trump Organization routinely inflated the worth of its assets by $800 million to $2 billion in a single year to save money on bank loans, insurance and taxes, but the former president testified that he had “virtually” no role in the company since he entered politics in 2015.
“My son Eric is much more involved with it than I am,” Trump said. “I’ve been doing other things, and I guess you could say on something major, whatever. But I’ve been much less involved in it than — over the last five years, five or six years than ever before.”