A new report stated that Donald Trump Jr. told investigators in New York that he does not understand the basics of accounting. He claimed ignorance when asked in a sworn affidavit about signing his father's financial statements. He said he barely remembers the principles of accounting from "Accounting 101" at Wharton. As the sole trustee of the family company, Donald Trump Jr. routinely signs his father's financial statements - but he still insists under oath in the filing that he has very little actual understanding of accounting, according to New York officials on Thursday.

In response to a question about the generally accepted accounting principles that must be followed in the United States, Trump Jr. claimed near-total ignorance, according to court documents filed Thursday by New York Attorney General Letitia James. "Donald Trump Jr. testified that his only knowledge of generally accepted accounting principles was 'probably [because of] Accounting 101 at Wharton,' and that aside from knowing they were 'generally accepted,' he could not identify any other knowledge he had regarding generally accepted accounting principles," the filing said. Donald Trump Jr., like his father and sister, graduated from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

He told New York magazine in 2004, "To be quite frank, I was heavily drinking and partying." James offered a glimpse of Donald Trump Jr.'s alleged accounting ignorance as part of a new lawsuit alleging that the Trump Organization is involved in a continuing pattern of fraud, extending beyond the 220-page lawsuit filed against the former president, his family, and his business on September 21.

Her office is asking a Manhattan judge to prevent Trump from transferring assets to the "Second Trump Organization," a new entity not named as a defendant in the lawsuit or in a pending criminal trial in Manhattan related to an alleged payroll tax scheme.

She is also asking the judge to immediately appoint an independent monitor to oversee Donald Trump's financial affairs and to require him to formally accept service of the lawsuit, which he has not done yet in the three weeks since it was filed. For Donald Trump Jr., he did not assert his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination—unlike his father and brother, Eric Trump—when he gave a court-ordered affidavit before the Attorney General's investigators in August, according to Thursday's filing.

Since 2017, the former president's son of the same name has been the trustee of the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, the entity created to oversee the Trump Organization when Donald Trump became president. The filing notes, referring to the annual financial status statements at the center of James's lawsuit: "Despite his role as trustee, Donald Trump Jr. had no specific recollections whatsoever of the statements." The filing continues, "Donald Trump Jr. testified that he does not understand how the statement is put together each year."

"Donald Trump Jr. added that he was aware that an accounting firm was involved but had no knowledge of the process or mechanisms of preparing the statements."

Edited by: Yusra Bamtarf