Controller testifies he relied on outside accountants
With an overwhelming number of entities to track in addition to numerous other responsibilities, the Trump Organization's longtime controller Jeffrey McConney said he relied on outside accountants to put together Trump's statements of financial condition.
While the statement took up a portion of his time between July and October each year, McConney testified that he otherwise spent "very little time" on the financial statements that underpin the attorney general's case.
The descriptions of each entity in the statements, and the disclaimers, largely remained the same year after year, according to McConney.
"A lot of this was Gerald Rosenblum's writing," he said about the section describing Trump Tower, referring to a former outside accountant.
"Whose words are those?" defense attorney Jesus Suarez said about a disclaimer that said that the value of "Donald J. Trump's worldwide reputation" was not considered in the statement.
"Mazars," McConney responded.
He added that Trump would make any change that Mazars recommended and largely followed the lead of then-Mazars accountant Donald Bender when modifying the statement.
"If [Bender] had items that he needed on the statement to change, we made the change," McConney said.