The stories you want. The opinions that matter.
No, thanks
Tag: trump finances
Trump’s Accountants Warn His Financial Data Isn't Reliable — And Quit

Trump’s Accountants Warn His Financial Data Isn't Reliable — And Quit

In one of the most remarkable events of the entire investigation into Donald Trump’s hyperinflated worth, his own accounting firm has now effectively fired him as a client. In a letter to Trump Organization attorney Alan Garten, accounting firm Mazars USA informs team Trump that they can no longer stand behind numbers they’ve been putting out because information provided by the New York attorney general, as well as Mazar’s own investigations, shows that data it got from Trump Organization was not reliable.

The accountants have informed Trump’s company that the last ten years' worth of financial records should “no longer be relied upon.” They’ve also told the Trump Organization that “you should inform any recipients thereof who are currently relying upon one or more of those documents that those documents should not be relied upon.” Telling everyone that he can’t be trusted will surely go straight to the top of Trump’s agenda.

The firm has not just determined that it has to disown ten years of reports, but declares that it will no longer work with Trump. “We have also reached the point such that there is a non-waiveable conflict of interest with the Trump Organization,” wrote Mazars. “As a result, we are not able to provide any new work product to the Trump Organization.” In other words, accounting firm Mazars USA has completed their last task related to the Trump Organization—a bulk purchase of ten-foot poles.

In the middle of a legal battle claiming that Trump has been fudging the numbers on his real estate “empire,” the people who are responsible for vetting those numbers have taken a second look and declared an official “Oh, sh#t.” Which seems like it should be concerning.

Trump will surely get right on spreading the word that he can’t be trusted. As soon as he gets past the ludicrous claim, relayed by The Wall Street Journal that because its own accounting was worthless, this “effectively renders the investigations by the D.A. and A.G. moot.”

Oddly, New York Attorney General Letitia James doesn’t seem to agree. As The Daily Beastreports, the response of the attorney geneal's office to the letter from Mazars was filing it in support of their case against Trump, Ivanka Trump, and Donald Trump Jr. Her office is also calling on all three to “testify about how so many family real estate development projects and properties had wildly fluctuating values that seemed high whenever they needed loans but low whenever it came time to pay taxes.”

Trump has leaned heavily on Mazars since he began his campaign in 2015. The accounting firm has led the charge in protecting his documents, including appealing attempts to release both more financial information and Trump’s personal tax documents, over and over for five years. The appeal leading to the final decision by the Supreme Court that allowed the Manhattan District Attorney to examine the documents, but continues to hide them from Congress, was officially filed not by Trump, but by Mazars.

Bizarrely, Trump issued a statement that says Mazars' letter “confirms” that “Mazars’ work was performed in accordance with all applicable accounting standards and principles and that such statements of financial condition do not contain any material discrepancies.” Which is the opposite of what the letter actually said. Yes, Mazars produced reports that followed accounting guidelines, but they did so based on unreliable information. Trump’s team seems to be saying, “They have accurately reported the lies we fed them,” so all is well.

Whether or not legal action will result from any of this is still up in the air. In spite of Eric Trump invoking the Fifth Amendment hundreds of times, in spite of lying not just about the value but about the physical size of his own signature building, in spite of Trump’s multiple attempts to kill the investigation, and despite evidence that Trump materially benefited from misstatements about the value of his properties, James has still not decided whether or not to pursue legal action against Trump or his organization.

In January, James tweeted:

“We have uncovered significant evidence indicating that the Trump Organization used fraudulent and misleading asset valuations on multiple properties to obtain economic benefits, including loans, insurance coverage, and tax deductions for years.”
None of this has yet led to an actual indictment against Trump. But his own accounting firm desperately paddling in the opposite direction might be a good indicator that the ship is about to sink, and no one wants to be too close when it happens.


Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Federal Judge Speeds Hearing On Trump Financial Records

Federal Judge Speeds Hearing On Trump Financial Records

A federal judge just decided to accelerate one of Trump’s court battles over his financial records. Now, the president only has until May 14 to prepare for a court hearing on the matter.

The judge moved things up because, as his order noted, both sides have already fully briefed the issue and there’s no need for another round of written material. The case had previously been structured so that the case would proceed in stages, but now things will move much faster.

Last month, the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars, requesting 10 years worth of financial audits and underlying documents that explain Trump’s financial condition.

Trump sued the Oversight Committee to keep Mazars from revealing anything about his dealings. The Trump Organization, Eric Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., and Ivanka Trump all joined the lawsuit because they’re all implicated in Trump’s disreputable business dealings too.

Trump is seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent Mazars from complying with the subpoena until the court case between Trump and the Oversight Committee is concluded. It’s likely Trump hoped this matter could be dragged out a bit longer, as all he really wants to do is tie up the House in litigation until after the 2020 election.

The accounting firm has taken no position in the litigation. It merely said it agreed the subpoena does compel them to produce documents, but the dispute is between Trump and the Oversight Committee. With that, they said they don’t need to participate in the hearing.

Trump’s argument in this case is unique, but entirely in keeping with who Trump is. He alleges Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), chair of the House Oversight Committee, has made clear that he wants to see Trump’s financials for a law enforcement purpose, not a legislative purpose, and that even if Cummings intends to pass later legislation that would prevent Trump’s actions from occurring again in the future, that’s still improper.

Put another way, Trump’s argument is essentially that it isn’t fair that Congress is looking into his financial misdeeds. It’s quite the argument for a sitting president to have to make.

Trump is doing everything to try to stop the House from performing its constitutionally mandated oversight duties, but he’s running out of options.

Published with permission of The American Independent.

Trump Lawyers Use Faked Quotes To Block Bank Subpoenas

Trump Lawyers Use Faked Quotes To Block Bank Subpoenas

Trump took another shameful step Monday night in his quest to obstruct legitimate congressional oversight, suing both Deutsche Bank and Capital One to try to prevent the two banks from complying with subpoenas for Trump’s financial records.

The lawsuit to block subpoenas issued by the House Financial Services Committee and the House Intelligence Committee — filed on behalf of Trump; his adult children Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Eric Trump; and several of his businesses — is whiny and riddled with fake quotes that Trump’s lawyers attribute to House Democrats.

Trump’s legal team claims the subpoenas were “issued to harass President Donald J. Trump, to rummage through every aspect of his personal finances, his businesses, and the private information of the President and his family, and to ferret about for any material that might be used to cause him political damage.”

Trump’s lawyers also argue that Congress went too far in subpoenaing records from Trump’s adult children, saying it is “intrusive and overbroad.”

However, Ivanka Trump works in the White House and both Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump are campaign surrogates — making their finances completely relevant for investigations into conflicts of interest. All three of them have also been involved in running the Trump family businesses, which Trump’s sons continue to do today.

Politico’s Kyle Cheney uncovered multiple instances in which Trump’s lawyers use fake quotes from House Democrats to make their case against the subpoenas — which is not only embarrassing for any ethical lawyer, but is a sign that the legal argument is so weak that his legal team had to doctor quotes to try to make their point.

In one instance, the legal team attributes a headline written by Vanity Fair to Democrats, as well as takes another quote from now House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer out of context.

Experts say the suit has little legal merit.

“This isn’t a close legal question,” David Alan Sklansky, a professor at Stanford Law School, told the Washington Post. “I’m quite confident there has never been a situation where a congressional subpoena has been quashed without a finding that it violates a constitutional right.”

However, even if courts rule against Trump, filing the suit is part of a concerted effort to stall and delay oversight that could uncover unethical or even illegal dealings Trump and his family have engaged in over the years.

Trump has already filed a lawsuit against the House Oversight Committee to block his accounting firm from handing over records that could show that Trump defrauded lenders by inflating his net worth. And he’s ordered current and former White House aides to defy other congressional subpoenas that are part of a litany of investigations into Trump’s tax returns, his attempts to obstruct justice that were outlined in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, and the White House security clearance process.

Trump’s obstruction is so bad that Democrats are weighing throwing those who refuse to comply with subpoenas in jail for contempt.

In the end, this latest Trump lawsuit is yet another attack on Congress’ legitimate oversight power. That Trump feels he needs to block that oversight shows he is clearly scared about what Democrats might uncover.

Published with permission of The American Independent.

IMAGE: (L-R) Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Donald Trump attend the ground breaking of the Trump International Hotel at the Old Post Office Building in Washington July 23, 2014. REUTERS/Gary Cameron

House Committees Subpoena Banks In Probe Of Trump Finances

House Committees Subpoena Banks In Probe Of Trump Finances

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

The only major bank that President Donald Trump has been able to count on for financial backing was among those that were issued subpoenas Monday by House Democrats.

The House Financial Services and Intelligence Committees both demanded that Deutsche Bank—one of Trump’s most reliable creditors—as well as Citigroup and Bank of America turn over records pertaining to the president’s personal and corporate finances.

Last year, reports that Special Counsel Robert Mueller was investigating Trump’s financial dealings with Deutsche Bank led to the president to call for Mueller’s probe to be shut down. But Deutsche itself opened an investigation into Trump shortly after he entered office to determine whether its loans to the president had any links to Moscow.

Over the past two decades, Deutsche Bank has been the only financial institution to continue giving credit to Trump. It loaned more than $2 billion to Trump over those years, $300 million of which Trump still owed to the bank when he took office.

As Common Dreams reported last year, German police raided Deutsche Bank’s Frankfurt headquarters in November in connection with the Panama Papers money laundering investigation. The subpoenas issued by the House committees reportedly pertain to possible money-laundering in Russia and Eastern Europe.

“The information that could bring down Trump,” wrote John Feffer, director of Foreign Policy In Focus, at Common Dreams last year, “may be somewhere in the Deutsche Bank files. The relevant documents would link the bank’s two most questionable financial activities—lending to Trump and washing Russian money.”

Democrats vowed to pursue Trump’s financial records after they won control of the House in November, saying they wanted to determine whether Russia may have had leverage over the president via his loans from Deutsche Bank.

“The potential use of the U.S. financial system for illicit purposes is a very serious concern,” Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, said in a statement Monday.

The subpoenas represent the latest step in Democrats’ effort to get to the bottom of Trump’s financial ties and those of the Trump Organization—from which the president refused to divest when he took office in 2017.

The House Ways and Means Committee also requested Trump’s personal and business tax returns from his accounting firm, leading the president to tell the company not to comply. The accounting firm, Mazars USA has said it plans “fully comply with its legal obligations” while Deutsche Bank says it is cooperating with the House Committees’ requests.

IMAGE: Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), chair of the House Financial Services Committee.