Trump Cheated (Shocker!) on Property Tax; But Will Anyone Go to Jail?
ProPublica published a piece Wednesday that put the spotlight once again on some questionable financial practices of the Trump Organization, which showed one set of books to banks (inflating value) and another to New York City tax authorities (deflating value).
Is this just the usual Trump mendacity, or can prosecutors see this as part of a pattern? And if so, could it be prosecuted? Who would be tagged as the defendant(s)? If not, what more is needed to bring the guilty parties to justice?
Before we explore these questions, let’s look at the facts. Both versions of them.
ProPublica obtained property tax docs for four Trump properties. These docs became public when Trump appealed the tax bills, and the loan records became public when Trump’s lenders sold the debt on the properties. Significant discrepancies were unearthed between the tax records and loan records for two of the properties: Trump International Hotel & Tower, on Central Park West, and 40 Wall St.
Tax and loan documents for 40 Wall St. showed significant discrepancies in how certain costs such as insurance were reported. Further, Trump representatives reported different occupancy rates to lenders and tax officials: 81 percent to lenders (rising later to 95 percent), and just 59 percent to tax authorities. Rising occupancy rates are valued by lenders because they are indicative of rising income level which is material to securing refinancing, while lower rates, of course, mean lower taxes.
Meanwhile, documents for the Trump International Hotel & Tower showed that city tax officials were advised that this property made about $822,000 in 2017 from renting space in the building to other businesses, while loan officials were told that the building made about $1.67 million. ProPublica further notes that Trump appeared not to report income from leasing space for television antennas on tax documents but did report the income on loan docs.
Each of the above-noted discrepancies is indicative of potential fraud. But do they represent instances of a prosecutable case?
The short answer is: not yet. The discrepancies do reflect a situational ethics approach toward financial obligations and responsibilities. But more evidence will be needed to prosecute anyone should criminal prosecution be considered by the authorities.
Who might be prosecuted here? It is unclear just who is responsible for submitting the doctored financial statements to the lending authorities and tax officials. Were the folks who submitted the documents the same folks who prepared them? If so, what were their marching orders? Who directed the Trump Organization officials to tailor the financial statements to minimize property taxes or maximize occupancy rates to obtain loans?
Investigators need to home in on the work papers prepared to support the finagled financial statements in order to determine “willful intent,” or “mens rea” that James Comey so infamously referenced. Such evidence may well be found at Mazars USA—the Trump Organization accounting firm that is the subject of intensive litigation with regard to subpoenas served by both the U.S. Congress and the Manhattan DA’s office.
Accountant work papers have been found to be beneficial when uncovering evidence of intent to defraud in case after case of white-collar fraud, specifically tax fraud. In fact, accountant work files and testimony provided critical evidence leading to the conviction of Paul Manafort in the Mueller investigations and prosecutions. It should be noted that tax fraud, bank fraud, and the falsification of business records may result in felony charges that could be contemplated by the Manhattan DA and provide for prison sentences that could lead the convicted defendants to land in Rikers Island for a stretch with the aforementioned Manafort.
Chip Somodevilla
Evidence of corrupt intent to defraud either a financial institution or a public tax authority is critical to a successful criminal prosecution. The use of a double or triple set of books and records by company officials for fraudulent purposes is a terrific example of overt acts of corrupt intent. But further evidence will be needed here to link all those involved in each of the instances denoted above.
Email, texts, voice mail, notes to the file and other evidence of directions to finagle the financial docs are needed. Further forensic analysis of the documents, for example fingerprint analysis, ink chemistry analysis and handwriting analysis are investigative tools available to the prosecutors to tighten the vise and provide the links in the chain of potential targets.
Cohen was reportedly debriefed in detail recently by the Manhattan DA’s office. His testimony will be needed to outline just who in the Trump Organization was responsible for the preparation of the questionable documents referenced above. Cohen’s credibility will clearly be attacked in court by the defendant(s) and will become a question for the jury to grapple with.
Cohen provided the Southern District of New York with a prosecutive path for those responsible for cooking the books at the Trump Organization with regard to the reimbursement of “hush money” payments to Cohen. That path is now available to the Manhattan DA. Add Cohen’s now corroborated congressional testimony outlining the transactional financial ethics referenced above, used by the Trump team in their shady business dealings and the jury will likely be sitting on the edge of their seats. All the DA needs to do now is fill in some blanks in combination with demonstrating a pattern of fraud over time—the closing argument is shaping up to be very persuasive.
The allegation that the Trump Organization appeared not to report income from leasing space for television antennas to tax authorities but did report the income on loan docs revives memories of the landmark New York Times tax fraud series on Fred Trump and Donald Trump’s financial shenanigans in the ’90s wherein the Times detailed multiple instances of unreported income streams tailored by Fred Trump for the Donald.
While the statute of limitations has long expired with regard to the multi-million dollar gift tax evasion schemes entered into by Donald Trump, prosecutors can use evidence of historical frauds to depict a pattern of fraudulent conduct on the part of a defendant no matter how long ago the fraud occurred. It goes to willfulness or corrupt intent exhibited by Individual-1.
The Manhattan DA’s case against the Trump Organization may appear to be on its surface just a mundane business fraud type of case. But fraudulent documents don’t change stories, particularly when there are witnesses available to tie the documents and the corrupt intent together.
Add the historical pattern of fraud engaged in by Individual-1 and the Manhattan DA’s case appears to be silently moving along like a stealth nuclear submarine under the radar and there are no available defenses available like an Office of Legal Counsel opinion to protect the prospective defendants from a potentially lethal prosecutorial attack.
Before I begin let me say, "Hey Trump supporters, fuck you!" OK you asshole, since most of you can barely read and since most of you are traitors to America, watch the video and listen to a true American hero.
Non of you fat waddling out of shape gluttons could ever meet the physical requirements to serve in the military so keep shoving junk food into your lie holes pie holes and die soon. Mad Dog Mattis should slap the taste out of your mouths.
George Will has a warning for Republican lawmakers: If you don’t stand up to President Donald Trump, you deserve to lose everything in next year’s election.
Will, a longtime conservative voice who quit the party in 2016 when it was clear Trump would be nominated, slammed the president’s decision to “betray” America’s Kurdish allies in Syria. He said the move could complete “the destruction of the GOP’s advantage regarding foreign policy.”
Trump’s gross and comprehensive incompetence now increasingly impinges upon the core presidential responsibility. This should, but will not, cause congressional Republicans to value their own and their institution’s dignity and exercise its powers more vigorously than they profess fealty to Trump"
Will added that Trump’s refusal to cooperate with the conservative voice into his dealings with Ukraine was in itself an impeachable offense.
“In 13 months, all congressional Republicans who have not defended Congress by exercising ‘the constitutional rights of the place’ should be defeated,” he wrote.
As I have said before, a well regulated militia does not mean that every nut should have a gun. A lot of nuts have guns and most Trump supporters are nuts and therefore not qualified to have guns.
This is not about gun control, it's about asshole control and protect good people from bad people.
A sane person would say, that mental patients should not have guns but a mental patient aka a Trump supporter would quote part of the 2nd amendment that says, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms should not be infringed". Trump supporters in addition to being morally depraved are also too mentally and morally defective to be trusted with guns or sharp objects for that matter. Trump supporters are mental patients, alcoholics, med heads, opiate addicts, meth heads, pill heads and wife beaters. A sane person would say that mental patients, alcoholics, med heads, opiate addicts, meth heads, pill heads and wife beaters cannot be trusted with guns. A crazy person aka, a Trump supporter would quote part of the 2nd amendment and say, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms should not be infringed". IMO the should be kicked in their lying lie holes for that dishonesty.
Trump supporters not only lack the intellect to be responsible gun owners, they also lack emotional maturity to be responsible trusted with firearms. Essentially they are children in big fat bloated adult bodies.
Look at these stupid fat fuckers!
OINK OINK SHOOT SHOOT
Trigger Warning to Trumptards! FACTS AHEAD!
You turds are mental midgets and baby men. You losers in Trump country have less education, less income, smaller dicks, more divorces, more teen pregnancies, lower life expediencies, more poverty, more homicides, more gun deaths...
You losers want your guns but you don't care about the rights of others such as the right for people to be safe from crazy people like you and the right for our police not to become victims of your weapons of war as the charge into hails of brutal gunfire tying to stop one of you sickos.
Keep smoking and burning coal you irresponsible losers.
EAT EAT EAT YOU BIG FAT LOSERS! OINK!!
Clearly, Trump Country losers are not mature or responsible enough to be trusted with guns other than squirt guns.
US officials were so alarmed by President Donald Trump's decision to reveal classified intelligence to Russian officials during an Oval Office meeting in 2017 that they extracted a top-secret source from Russia shortly after, CNN reported on Monday.
Intelligence officials typically extract sources when they believe the person's life is in immediate danger.
The information Trump shared with the Russians wasn't directly connected to the source, but CNN reported that its disclosure prompted officials to "renew earlier discussions" about the potential risk that the source would be exposed.
The president has repeatedly been accused of mishandling classified information that could compromise the US's intelligence-gathering methods and put lives at risk.
A person directly involved with the discussions told the outlet the US was concerned that Trump and his administration routinely mishandled classified intelligence and that their actions could expose the covert source as a spy within the Russian government.
Trump stunned the national-security apparatus and intelligence community when it surfaced that in an Oval Office meeting in May 2017 he shared the information with Sergey Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, and Sergey Kislyak, then Russia's ambassador to the US.
Trump's disclosure was not specifically about the Russian spy. But his disregard of strict intelligence-sharing rules to protect highly placed sources "prompted intelligence officials to renew earlier discussions about the potential risk" that the source in Russya would be exposed, CNN reported.
At the Oval Office meeting, which took place one day after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, the president is said to have boasted to the Russians that firing "nut job" Comey had taken "great pressure" off him. Comey had been spearheading the FBI's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US election.
Trump then went on to share with Lavrov and Kislyak intelligence connected to the Islamic State in Syria. The information came from Israel, which had not given the US permission to share it with the Russians because it could have compromised an Israeli source in the region.
The report said that Mike Pompeo, the CIA director at the time, also told other senior Trump administration officials after the meeting that too much information was coming out regarding the US asset in Russia.
This is not the first time national-security veterans have expressed concerns that Trump's actions could reveal sensitive information about US intelligence-gathering processes and human sources working abroad.
Late last month, the president's tweet about US military information he received during a classified intelligence briefing earlier that day immediately set off alarm bells because it included a satellite photo of an Iranian launchpad that was of a much higher resolution and better quality than the commercial satellite images of the site that were publicly available.
Intelligence veterans said the president's tweet would be a gold mine for hostile foreign powers.
"One doesn't use intel for the purposes of taunting. The Russians and the Chinese will be very happy to study this," Robert Deitz, a former top lawyer at the CIA and the National Security Agency, told Insider.
Last year, Trump also made the unusual decision to authorize the declassification of a highly controversial memo about the origins of the Russia investigation by Devin Nunes, then the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, for political purposes.
The memo and its release sparked a firestorm on Capitol Hill and within the intelligence community. Top intelligence officials met multiple times with senior White House staff to urge against releasing the document for fear that it could expose sources and methods.
The Justice Department and the FBI also took the extraordinary step of releasing statements cautioning against its release by the House Intelligence Committee without giving officials enough time to review it.
A Well Regulated Militia Doesn't Mean Any Idiot Can Have A Gun.
The heading speaks for itself. I agree that Americans should have gun for hunting and personal protection but like everything else some rights have limits and all rights come with responsibilities. When I grew up cops had revolvers but thank to the Russian controlled NRA civilian law enforcement is armed like our military. Our police are now facing greater small arms firepower than our soldiers and they are being required to charge into it when some Trump inspired nutter goes on a killing spree. This is just wrong on so many levels and for so many reasons.
Penalties For Lying and Slanderous Treason
Trump supporters are a lot of things but honest and moral would not be among them. They lie as easily as Trump does and their lies are damaging to our country in many ways. We are on a slippery slope when we think about legislating morality but on every measure of morality, the Bible Belt is the most immoral place in the country and perhaps in the world. It is the divorce belt, the sloth belt, the gun belt. the homicide belt, the mass shooting belt, the porn belt, the teen pregnancy belt, the smoking belt, the welfare belt, the racism belt, the fake Christian, the poverty belt, and the low life expectancy belt, Perhaps the wages of sin really do lead to death.
Patriots love America and I am a patriot. For us America is a shrine for patriotic devotion. To Trump trash its a garbage dump and a shrine to greed and the golden calf which has grown into a fat dangerous bull worshiped by liars like Paul Ryan, fed by Anton LeVay and ridden by Ayn Rand.
Ending the Kleptocracy
The corporate news media talks about the Russian oligarchy while they are part of the American oligarchy. In both cases, it is a kleptocracy. American companies getting discounted labor from illegal workers or filthy corporations like Apple using Chinese slave labor to manufacture their products are kleptocrats. The medical industry that cruelly exploits human suffering for obscene profits and withholds cures is kleptocracy.
Oppression really does breed violence and lies create genocide. History proves that. The trash on the right is too stupid, delusional and evil to know that their oppressors are the very people they defend so they lash out ignorantly, angrily and chaotically at the non Whites, non Trumpians, moderates, actual conservatives, socialists, liberals and progressives who whine about the traitorous criminal Donald Trump.
The violence will only get worse and the political errand boys and girls can or will do little to stop it. History proves that. The kleptocracy may not survive. It happened in France in 1789 and in the colonies in 1776. It's happening in Taiwan. Robespierre said it best, "Peoples do not judge in the same way as courts of law; they do not hand down sentences, they throw thunderbolts; they do not condemn kings, they drop them back into the void; and this justice is worth just as much as that of the courts."He continued,"Smuggle out the truth, pass it through all the obstacles that its enemies fabricate; multiply, spread by all means possible her message so that she may triumph; through zeal and civic action counterbalance the influence of money and the machinations lavished on the propagation of deception.That, in my opinion, is the most useful activity and the most sacred duty of pure patriotism." Today's depots are weasels like Mark Zuckerberg, the banksters, corporate board members, CEO's and the people who do their bidding and tell their lies such as the Trump trash. Take Trump trash to the dump.
The next president will need to by a despot against tyranny in order for things to change. That will happen by punishing the filthy rich and all the other crooks and liars. Some people are just no damn good and the next president needs to understand that. Trump has set a new precedent of breaking the law as president and being above the law as president. He even had a hit taken out on Jeffery Epstein. Maybe the next president should see that traitors like Zuckerberg get the Epstein treatment.
