Madeline Halpert
Reporting from court

Image source, Reuters

Prosecutors have now started quizzing Donald Trump Junior about an email from Forbes Magazine attempting to fact check claims about the size of a Trump Tower penthouse.

According to the email, Donald Trump estimated the size of his penthouse to be about 33,000 square feet (3,065 square metres). Previous property records suggest the apartment is actually closer to 10,000 square feet, the Forbes reporter said in an email to the Trumps.

Asked whether he did any work to fact check the penthouse claim, as well as several other concerns listed in the email from Forbes, Donald Trump Jr said no.

“I don’t know that I did any [fact checking]”, he said, claiming it would take too much time to research all the concerns outlined by the reporter.

Madeline Halpert
Reporting from court

Donald Trump Jr is back at the stand, and prosecutors have restarted their questioning.

They're asking once again about financial statements. Trump Jr says he doesn't recognise a document from 2016 being presented on the screen.

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court

Image source, Getty Images

Yesterday, Trump Jr quipped that he "should have worn makeup" as pool photographers snapped his picture.

At the start of today's hearing, Judge Arthur Engoron asked him, "Did you remember for today?”

The witness answered humorously, we didn't quite hear what he said but it appears to have amused the judge.

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court

Donald Trump Jr just walked into the courtroom, three minutes before the start of session, and takes a seat at the defense table.

Madeline Halpert
Reporting from court

Image source, Reuters

Donald Trump Jr testified on Wednesday that his role in the company grew after his father won the White House.

His questioning focused on Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) - the standardised practices and guidelines that businesses use to ensure financial records are accurately maintained.

He said he was not familiar with GAAP, besides what he could recall from his time studying business at university.

"I leave it to my accountants," Trump Jr said.

Image source, Reuters

Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump have entered the court with their legal team.

CBS News, the BBC's US partner, asked Trump Jr what day two will bring.

He threw up his hands and said, "I'll tell you in an hour".

The New York attorney general followed shortly after, passing a note to someone as they went up the court building stairs.

Phil McCausland
US reporter

Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump have become political surrogates for their father, but they also kept the Trump Organization running while he was in the Oval Office.

Both are named defendants in the case and carry the title of executive vice-president in their father's company.

Those titles meant the two sons were "intimately involved in the operation of the Trump Organization's business", the New York Attorney General argued in court filings, external.

"They were aware of the true financial performance of the company", the prosecution added.

Eric Trump, who oversaw luxury golf developments for a time, denied he had anything to do with the valuation of Trump golf courses. He asserted that "I pour concrete, I operate properties, I don't focus on appraisals" in a video of his deposition.

While testifying earlier in the trial, David McArdle, a real estate executive who handled asset valuations for the Trump Organization, said Eric Trump's statement about not being involved was false, according to US media reports, external.

Trump Jr, who had a key role overseeing commercial leasing, laughed off prosecutors' accounting questions, a video of his deposition shows.

Both brothers denied any knowledge of wrongdoing.

Madeline Halpert
Reporting from court

Image source, Getty Images

First up, we'll be hearing from Donald Trump Jr. Court is scheduled to start at 10:00 ET (14:00 GMT).

Depending on how long the prosecution and cross examination takes, we could also hear testimony from his brother, Eric Trump, this afternoon.

Eric, who oversaw luxury golf developments for a time, has denied he had anything to do with the valuation of Trump properties.

He's already attended several days of the trial, sitting behind his father.

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court

"I should have worn make-up," Donald Trump Jr quipped on Wednesday as a group of photographers rushed into court to take his picture.

His comment set the tone for what was an hour-long charm offensive that saw Trump Jr lightheartedly engaging with the judge while letting his lawyers do the brawling for him.

Yesterday, the eldest son of the former president appeared confident and relaxed on the witness stand.

He smiled during proceedings, even making the occasional joke and drawing laughter from the courtroom.

He will continue his testimony today.

Madeline Halpert
Reporting from court

Hello again from the New York Supreme Court.

Kayla Epstein and I have just entered the courtroom where Donald Trump’s son, Donald Jr, will take the stand again this morning.

Trump’s eldest son testified for a little over an hour yesterday, responding to questions about his background and role in the Trump Organization.

He also attempted to distance himself from the fraud his family is accused of, arguing he relied on experts to prepare financial statements that prosecutors say inflated the value of company assets.

Stay with us.

Brandon Livesay
Reporting from New York

Image source, Reuters

Donald Trump Jr cracked jokes and appeared in a jovial mood as he testified in court today.

The questions from the prosecution seemed to be mainly background information; what was his role in the company? How was he involved in the Trust?

Those questions will likely ramp up when he is due back for round two tomorrow.

Court is scheduled to start at 10:00 local time (14:00 GMT), and we will once again be bringing you live updates and analysis.

In the meantime, you can read more about Donald Trump Jr's day in court by clicking this link.

Thanks for joining us.

Madeline Halpert
Reporting from court

Court has just come to a close for the day.

Donald Trump Jr's testimony is expected to resume tomorrow morning.

Madeline Halpert
Reporting from court

Prosecutors have quizzed Trump Jr on whether he was involved in the preparation of certain financial statements for the company.

A judge has already found the former president and his adult sons liable for fraud, ruling they inflated the value of assets on financial statements to secure favourable loans.

Trump Jr denies he was involved in the preparation of a 2017 statement of financial condition that's being displayed in court, arguing he relied on experts to "put together a document of this nature".

“The accountants worked on it, that’s what we paid them for," he says.

While questioning continues, let's pull away from the courtroom briefly to see what Donald Trump had to say earlier today.

Trump shared a message on his Truth Social account very early this morning, just before 02:30 ET.

Trump wrote: “Leave my children alone, Engoron. You are a disgrace to the legal profession!”

Judge Arthur Engoron is overseeing this New York civil trial.

Madeline Halpert
Reporting from court

New York Judge Arthur Engoron has just asked the prosecutor and Donald Trump Jr to "slow down" their speech as the court stenographer can't keep up with the "rapid-fire" pace, he says.

“I apologise your honour, I moved to Florida, but I kept the New York pace,” Trump Jr says.

At the same time, Engoron asks the prosecutor to get through questions more quickly.

We've got about 20 minutes left in court today and prosecutors have so far mainly stuck to questions about Trump Jr's background and role at the Trump Organization.

Madeline Halpert
Reporting from court

Prosecutors have spent the past several minutes going over a series of documents related to the Donald J Trump Revokable Trust, a trust that Donald Trump Sr put his assets into when he became US president.

They're displaying several documents on a screen in court and asking Donald Trump Jr - a trustee of the trust - to validate the information.

Trump Jr briefly explains his role as a trustee. He says he makes decisions about assets in it, adding that when his father became president, the company became "very limited in terms of what deals we could do", especially internationally.

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court

Image source, Reuters

Trump Jr appears relaxed and confident on the stand so far.

He's even made a couple of quips and elicited some laughs from the court.

At one point, Judge Engoron makes a wonky pronunciation joke about the term "revocable".

“We have the chance to ask a real trustee, is it re-VOKE-able or re-VOCK-able," Engoron asks.

Trump Jr laughs and tells the judge he doesn't know, chuckling along with the courtroom.

Moments later, Faherty asks him if he knew about a "revocable" matter, pronouncing it the first way.

“I don’t know what that is," Trump Jr said. "I only understand re-VOCK-able".

The court laughs: it's a rare moment of levity after a testy morning that featured the judge chiding Trump's defence team for asking incremental questions.

But we're early in the questioning, and the tone could change.

Image source, EPA-EFA, Reuters, Getty

The court just had a short break. While we wait for the action to start up again, let's look at some of the cast of characters involved in this trial:

• New York Judge Arthur Engoron is presiding over the trial and has already found Trump liable of inflating his assets to secure favourable loans
• New York Attorney General Letitia James brought the case against Trump, his children and the Trump Organization. She seeks a fine of $250m (£205m) and severe limitations on the company
• Trump attorneys Christopher Kise and Alina Habba have claimed in court that Trump did not inflate the value of his assets, arguing the value of many of his properties is subjective. Habba is a fierce defender of Trump and has represented him in previous cases as well
• Trump’s former lawyer and now foe, Michael Cohen, testified in court last week, claiming he changed asset values to match numbers Trump came up with. Trump argued Cohen, who served time for tax evasion and making false statements, is an unreliable witness

Madeline Halpert
Reporting from court

Prosecutors are pressing Donald Trump Jr on who has the ultimate authority to make decisions at the Trump Organization.

Trump Jr says he, his brother Eric and former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg took over that role when his father became the US President in 2017.

"We stopped reporting to my father on decisions in the business,” he says.

Asked by New York Attorney General prosecutor Colleen Faherty to provide details on why Weisselberg no longer works for the company, Trump Jr declines, saying he doesn't have knowledge of specific details.

Weisselberg has served time for tax fraud in a criminal case related to his work at the Trump Organization.

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court

So far, the questioning has touched on Trump Jr's knowledge of something called Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).

It's a set of standardised accounting practices and guidelines that businesses use to assure financials are accurately managed and recorded.

Because the attorney general's office alleges that the company fraudulently inflated the value of its properties, and Trump Jr played a role in overseeing some of its commercial real estate assets, they're asking him about the guidelines.

Early in the trial, the attorney general's office said Trump Jr, along with the now-convicted CFO of the Trump Organization Allen Weisselberg, had responsibilities for these GAAP statements from 2016-2021.

In a deposition, Trump Jr has said he wasn't familiar with the GAAP guidelines beyond what he'd learned in business school.

It's an answer he reiterated today on the stand, telling the court he's not an accountant.

“I have no understanding,” he replied to a repeated question from prosecutor Colleen Faherty, eliciting chuckles from the courtroom.