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Trump Organization’s Other New York State Case

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[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]

Because we’re running in excess of 500 comments across the last three threads about Donald Trump’s indictment and arraignment in Manhattan, I want to post another thread for more discussion.

I’ll remind you now I’m not a lawyer and I don’t have either Marcy’s holographic memory or her skills at fine reading, nor bmaz’s experience representing criminal defendants.

But I want to bring up a couple subjects we haven’t discussed which are related to D.A. Alvin Bragg’s criminal suit against Trump.

First, only one member of the emptywheel community made a passing reference to Trump’s post-arraignment speech. They didn’t mention Trumps’ threats.

Yes, that’s plural Trumps, because Donnie Jr. and Eric posted in social media a photo of New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan and his daughter on the day of his father’s arraignment. They targeted Merchan’s daughter for having worked for Kamala Harris’ campaign.

You’ll recall in July 2020 that U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey Judge Esther Salas’ family members were attacked at their home – her husband was shot three times and her son shot and killed. The attacker was an aggressive anti-feminist who killed himself shortly after the attack on Salas’ family. He had been able to locate Salas’ home using her personal information publicly available online.

Last November, Congress passed the Daniel Anderl Judicial Security and Privacy Act of 2021, named after Salas’ son, to protect the personal information about judges on the internet.

Trump himself attacked Judge Merchan verbally in his speech from Mar-a-Lago after returning from his arraignment. He’d been strongly cautioned against threatening speech during his arraignment, but he fulminated anyhow about Merchan being a “Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family,” repeating the same disparaging remarks he’d made earlier the same day over social media. He also targeted Merchan’s daughter.

Apart from the obvious potential incitement to violence the Trumps attempted against Judge Merchan and his family, was this a move to manipulate the Manhattan case?

Being a state jurist, Merchan and his family are not protected by the federal Judicial Security and Privacy Act. But I wonder if these threats made online and on an interstate basis were intended not just to influence the judge or D.A. Alvin Bragg.

Are there potential federal repercussions?

~ ~ ~

Secondly, the emptywheel community and the legal commentariat at large have sifted through Trump’s indictment and the statement of facts. The amount of related discussion across social media has been exhausting.

However community member c-i-v-i-l shared a link to a thread by University of Texas Professor of Law Lee Kovarsky which checked me short and made me rethink the 34 count indictment.

You can catch the thread on the Wayback Machine at this Internet Archive link (I won’t make you go to Elmo’s House of Doge Nazi Bar for this).

What gave me pause was Kovarsky’s analysis of preemption and the matrix of possible underlying crime(s) which Bragg did not disclose but underpin the charges Bragg filed against Trump.

Here’s what the matrix looked like, with Not-Trump = Pecker, Cohen, etc. according to Kovarsky:

(1) federal tax law violation by Trump (2) federal tax law violation by Not-Trump
(3) state tax law violation by Trump (4) state tax law violation by Not-Trump
(5) federal election law violation by Trump (6) federal election law violation by Not-Trump
(7) state election law violation by Trump (8) state election law violation by Not-Trump

Kovarsky made a lot of sense to a non-lawyer like me as he pointed out where others’ arguments about preemption are weak and what’s most likely as a preemption.

And then it clicked, all the tumblers fell into place.

In my uneducated opinion, the underlying crime isn’t one which can be preempted by federal law.

It’s a crime which has been prosecuted by the state of New York already.

It’s a crime which has already been prosecuted by the Manhattan D.A.

It’s a crime which explains the narrow emphasis on business records and falsification of the same, and a crime which relied on falsified business records.

And the crime looked like this:

These are counts for which Trump Organization and its CFO (TO CFO) was already convicted and is now serving time in Rikers Island.

It’s the April 2017 and April 2018 tax returns and related supporting documentation filed based on falsified business records for which TO CFO Allen Weisselberg has already been charged.

But so has the Trump Organization – the same organization which was responsible for the financial records of Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, and the financial records of Donald J. Trump.

This January both Trump Corporation and the Trump Payroll Corporation were assessed a total of $1.6 million in fines for their tax fraud as part of Trump Organization.

Again, I’ll remind you I’m not a lawyer, don’t even play one on TV, though I’ve done bookkeeping for several small businesses in my career and worked for a lawyer and CFO. I’ve shared my speculation here knowing I’m going to get a drubbing from my partner in (im)moderation bmaz.

I don’t even know if I can muster much defense of my own argument here except that Weisselberg’s case is one which hasn’t been discussed much at all since Tuesday morning.

Yet it was reported on March 30 that Weisselberg had “dumped” his Trump-funded lawyer Nicholas Gravante or that the Trump organization had fired Weisselberg’s lawyer. Gravante was apparently too willing to let Weisselberg talk with Bragg’s office.

Weisselberg is now represented by Seth L. Rosenberg who was a former member of the Manhattan D.A.’s office; Rosenberg has been with Clayman & Rosenberg LLP since 1986.

The late shuffle of attorneys could be a sign that it is the tax fraud for which Trump Org has already been charged that is the predicate to Trump’s 34-count indictment.

This situation would explain why Bragg would have been reluctant to outline the underlying crime when the 34 counts against Trump were filed and Trump was arraigned. Trump has already been manipulating Weisselberg through the legal representation Trump organization has been providing him; it’s reasonable to assume this is an attempt to throttle Weisselberg’s possible testimony against Trump.

What other crime might have been the predicate upon which the Manhattan D.A.’s charges would have relied if not the tax fraud charges against Trump Organization?

What other underlying crime would avoid preemption?

44, 40, and 38

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[NB: Check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]

It should be absolutely crystal clear the language used by Individual-1 in reference to these persons aged 44, 40, and 38 is pure propaganda.

(source: Wikipedia.org)

These are graduates of pricey universities who are old enough to have adult children. One of them was an advisor to the former White House occupant.

They may be the progeny, descendants, and heirs of Donald J. Trump but they are not juveniles, youngsters, or children.

His reference to Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric as children is subtly racist as well, because in 1989 Trump would never have referred to these persons:

Kevin Richardson, 14
Antron McCray, 15
Raymond Santana,14
Korey Wise, 16
Yusef Salaam, 15

as children.

Yes, racist, though Trump is hardly the first and only to use the white supremacist convention which allows any white adult with a living parent to be called a child while Black persons of any age are labeled in terms which erase any any and all innocence no matter the situation.

Innocence is exactly what Trump wants to convey and it’s fallacious bullshit.

Trump will continue to spew this manipulative crap to skew the public’s sentiment, but every bit of it must be rejected and set straight with the truth.

All three of these adults and their father have been subpoenaed by the New York Attorney General in relation to an investigation into the Trump Organization’s use of fraudulent and misleading asset valuations to obtain economic benefits.

This is hardly the stuff of children who can’t knowingly enter contracts. The NYAG’s brief profiles of Trump’s adult progeny describe people who are quite capable of managing contracts:

Donald Trump, Jr. runs the Trump Organization with Eric Trump. He is also a trustee of the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust and has certified annual financial statements regarding the assets the Trust holds for Donald J. Trump.
…
Ivanka Trump was the Executive Vice President for Development and Acquisitions of the Trump Organization through at least 2016. Among other responsibilities, Ms. Trump negotiated and secured financing for Trump Organization properties. Until January 2017, Ms. Trump was a primary contact for the Trump Organization’s largest lender, Deutsche Bank.

These are adults who need to cooperate with law enforcement because their father isn’t going to make this any better. He’s clearly not stepped up to respond to the subpoena and instead thrown “children” in front of the NYAG’s bus.

Drive for Show, Putt for Dough, Cheat for Tax Deductions

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[NB: Check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]

I swear every time I think I’ve met the limit of repulsion for Trump, I meet a new threshold.

You’re doubtless aware of the New York Attorney General’s Motion to Compel against The Trump Organization, Inc.; Seven Springs LLC; Allen Weisselberg; Eric Trump; Charles Martabano; Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP (MLB); Sheri Dillon; Donald J. Trump; Ivanka Trump; and Donald Trump, Jr. in relation to investigation of “fraudulent or misleading asset valuations to obtain a host of economic benefits, including loans, insurance coverage, and tax deductions.”

Martabano is a real estate attorney; MLB is a tax attorneys practice which sought to cut ties with Trump; Sheri Dillon has been a partner at MLB working on the Trump account. The rest of the named you are likely familiar with from previous news and posts.

This motion is only in relation to a civil action by NYAG Letitia James; the District Attorney of the County of New York (DANY) Alvin Bragg is conducting a parallel criminal investigation.

I’ve written before about Trump National Golf Club Westchester and the generally scammy and scummy way Trump and Trump org treated the community of Briarcliff where the course is located.

NYAG’s motion opened up a new can of angry bees from a location I haven’t looked at previously because it wasn’t a Trump golf course resort.

Seven Springs is an example of a golf course which didn’t happen, and what Trump did to try and keep the property while paying out as little as possible to do so.

This sounds relatively harmless; who doesn’t try to keep their expenses down?

Except Seven Springs is yet another example of Trump’s lousy judgment and his externalizing his failures onto others.

~ ~ ~

This is Seven Springs as it was back when it was owned by Eugene and Agnes Meyer (also known as the parents of Washington Post’s former publisher Katharine Graham née Meyer). It was built for the Meyers in 1915 for what then was an unfathomable amount of money – $2 million for a little over 28,000 square feet. (Note the rows of young trees planted at the top of the photo as well as the trees to the right side which follow the embankment to the Byram Lake Reservoir.)

(source: Histree.com)

Agnes Meyer died in 1970; under the successor Meyer Foundation, Seven Springs was then used as a conference center by Yale University. In 1984 the foundation cut its ties with Yale and gifted the property to Rockefeller University.

In 1995 – three years after his divorce from his first wife Ivana and a year before he bought the former Briar Hall Golf and Country Club in Westchester – Trump bought Seven Springs from Rockefeller University

Trump originally planned to develop the property into a golf course. A number of architectural design firms worked competitively on plans over a handful of years.

But nothing came of the effort for a number of reasons, the biggest barrier being the approval of the local community and his neighbors.

This is Seven Springs as it appears on Google Maps in satellite view. It is located almost half way between two golf courses – the Mt. Kisco Country Club (opened in 1928) and the Summit at Armonk (opened in 1961).

Mt. Kisco Country Club at upper left; the Summit at Armonk at lower right; Seven Springs in center to left of Byram Lake Reservoir. (source: Google Maps)

The addition of a Trump course at Seven Springs would mean three golf courses inside less than a 10-mile radius. Seven Springs is located on undulating terrain with granite underneath and wetlands on the property, making development extremely complicated and pricey.

Surface water from Seven Springs acreage drains into the Byram Lake Reservoir which provides drinking water for the Mt. Kisco community; a new golf course with all its lawn chemicals and additional automobile traffic dropping gasoline, oil, and more would increase pollutants in the reservoir. One can understand the community’s reluctance to approve a Trump course when there has already been one nearby for decades; the community knows just how much a golf course can affect the reservoir.

The property also abuts the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Nature Preserve immediately to the south which is owned by The Nature Conservancy. It is undeveloped woodlands overlooked by the 28,000 square foot house at Seven Springs.

~ ~ ~

This is what pissed me off.

Trump had to have known when he bought Seven Springs that the nature preserve which had once been part of the Meyers’ 1000-acre holding was next door to the immediate south of the estate. One of the tentative plans for a golf course snugged up to the north boundary of the preserve.

Once Trump finally gave up on this course after stringing along star-struck course developers for years, he decided he would pursue real estate development, tentatively subdividing Seven Springs to build up to 14 McMansion-sized homes.

But he apparently wanted or needed a through way across the 213 acres for both the purposes of development and for the future home owners.

He sued The Nature Conservancy and the community for an easement to build a road — extending Oregon Road which leads to Seven Springs along the drive on the property and then through the nature preserve over an unpaved path to where Oregon Road begins again south of the preserve.

Again, Trump had to have known when he bought the 213-acre parcel that it did not include an easement into/through the nature preserve. An unpaved path from Seven Springs into the preserve once existed, but a gate had been installed in 1990 between Seven Springs and the preserve. Rockefeller University had known about a previous easement but allowed it to expire during its ownership of Seven Springs.

The easement was extinct, demised, non-extant, and even more dead because Trump had allowed more than 10 years to pass between purchasing Seven Springs and suing for an easement.

And yet in August 2006 Trump went to court to get his way, costing The Nature Conservancy and the community time and money to fight off his demand for an easement and road through pristine woodlands because he didn’t have the goddamned foresight to see the Seven Springs property was problematic as golf course and residential development when he bought it in 1995.

Never mind the fact the course would be in competition with two well-established courses.

~ ~ ~

Now it gets messy.

Because he can’t develop the property at all without some accommodation for a road and the neighbors and community aren’t happy but he wants to hang onto the property for his family’s use, Trump pursued tax deductions.

It’s not clear from the NYAG’s motion when Trump began pursuit of a tax deduction for a 150-acre conservation easement on Seven Springs property. In exchange for promising not to develop property, Trump’s organization obtained a $5 million tax credit from 2014 to 2018 for Seven Springs and Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles combined.

He also pursued a very similar conservation easement tax deduction at Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles worth multiple millions in tax credits. The land set aside from development was used as a driving range – no buildings constructed, no fairways or greens, just a patch of mowed lawn for practice shots but still part of the golf course business, and surely not open to the public for free. This tax deduction, too, is being examined by NYAG.

Which part of the 213-acre Seven Springs property did he set aside to conserve?

The part which had been cleared of trees planted by the Meyers?

The part which has been cleared of trees and brushed out down the slope to the Byram Lake Reservoir, which realistically can’t be developed anyhow because of that slope?

The part which couldn’t be developed because of the lack of local approvals and the road he couldn’t add?

MOUNT KISCO, NY – SEPTEMBER 30 2020: President Trump’s Seven Springs estate in Mount Kisco, New York, seen here Sept. 30, 2020.
(Johnny Milano for The Washington Post)

Which is the question at the heart of NYAG’s investigation into Seven Springs: how can Trump place a value on the 150-acre conservation easement for a tax deduction based on high-end residential development, when it couldn’t be developed?

How can a permanent swath of lawn punctuated with trees be the same value as new McMansion construction?

It’s not worth roughly $2-3 million a year in tax deductions on the face of it.

~ ~ ~

Another really irritating part of this beyond the pudgy orange weasel himself is the absence of the Internal Revenue Service and the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. How did this scofflaw get away with millions of dollars in sketchy tax deductions all this time?

This situation should never have gotten this far out of hand; the first time a taxpayer, human or corporate, takes multi-million tax deductions on conservation easements, that’s the time an agent from either the IRS or the state tax authority physically inspects the property and investigates its backstory to ensure it’s a legitimate conservation easement.

But like everything else Trump has gotten away with so far, the right authorities to deal with him at the time he violated a law or regulation failed to do their duty and the public has no idea why.

If I took a multi-million tax deduction on a conservation easement this year, you can bet I’d be sucked into an audit as fast as you can blink.

Once NYAG and DANY are done with their investigations, local, state, and federal governments need to look at what triggers should set off audits and investigations because whatever they’re currently relying on isn’t working.

$2-3 million is one hell of a lot of tax revenue which could have paid for many public services in New York State and beyond.

And I haven’t even mentioned the other Trump properties in New York though I’ve written about them before.

Nor have I mentioned the easement lawsuit and the creation of conservation easements for tax purposes occurred while Trump was appearing in The Apprentice, kitted out and scripted to look as if he was a successful, honest businessman and real estate developer season after season.

~ ~ ~

Eric Trump, he of 500-plus invocations of the Fifth Amendment under questioning by NYAG, said of Seven Springs, “It was home base for us for a long, long time…”

Yeah? Well, all your base are belong to us if Seven Springs ends up seized for taxes.

Seriously, fuck this base.

What Lies Beneath the Turf

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[NB: check the byline, thanks! /~Rayne]

We learned this past week that the Westchester County, NY district attorney is investigating the Trump National Golf Club Westchester.

… The full scope of the investigation could not be determined, but the district attorney, Mimi E. Rocah, appears to be focused at least in part on whether Mr. Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, misled local officials about the property’s value to reduce its taxes, one of the people said. …

While in the White House Trump declared on mandatory financial disclosure statements the Westchester golf course was worth $50 million; however the Trump org claimed the 140-acre property with its 75,000 square foot clubhouse was worth only $1.4 million for local tax purposes.

For comparison, nearby residential homes (currently listed for sale) are assessed at much higher rates:

Home A, 1.12 acres, listed at $1.5M, assessed at $1.03M ($2543/month taxes)
Home B, 2.75 acres, listed at $2.3M, assessed at $1.4M ($3768/month taxes)
Home C, 3.52 acres, listed at $2.7M, assessed at $2.5M ($4,400/month taxes)

While there may be some rationale for a commercial property assessed at such ridiculously low value compared to these residential properties within walking distance, it doesn’t make sense when golf courses are being converted to residential property during a contraction of the golf industry, and when the municipality and neighbors have had a history of sewer and drainage problems caused by the golf course, resulting in damage to individual and community property.

The gap between the local tax assessment and the financial report valuation has been known for years now, noted well before Election Day 2016.

The possibility of tax and insurance fraud by the Trump organization has been clear for years now as well, in no small part because of testimony before the House Oversight Committee in February 2019 by Trump’s former attorney, Michael Cohen (beginning at 4:43:30):

Transcript:

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez: OK. Thank you.
Second, I want to ask a little bit about your conversation with my colleague from Missouri about asset inflation. To your knowledge, did the President ever provide inflated assets to an insurance company?
Mr. Cohen: Yes.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez: Who else knows that the President did this?
Mr. Cohen: Allen Weisselberg, Ron Lieberman, and Matthew Calamari.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez: And where would the committee find more information on this? Do you think we need to review his financial statements and his tax returns in order to compare them?
Mr. Cohen: Yes, and you would find it at The Trump Org.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez: Thank you very much.
The last thing here. The Trump Golf organization currently has a golf course in my home borough of the Bronx, Trump Links. I drive past it every day going between The Bronx and Queens. In fact, The Washington Post reported on the Trump Links Bronx course in an article entitled “Taxpayers Built This New York Golf Course and Trump Reaps the Rewards.”
That article is where many New Yorkers and people in the country learned that taxpayers spent $127 million to build Trump Links in a, quote, “generous deal allowing President Trump to keep almost every dollar that flows in on a golf course built with public funds.” And this doesn’t seem to be the only time the President has benefited at the expense of the public.
Mr. Cohen, I want to ask you about your assertion that the President may have improperly devalued his assets to avoid paying taxes. According to an August 21, 2016, report by The Washington Post, while the President claimed in financial disclosure forms that Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida, was worth more than $50 million, he had reported otherwise to local tax authorities that the course was worth, quote, “no more than $5 million.”
Mr. Cohen, do you know whether this specific report is accurate?
Mr. Cohen: It’s identical to what he did at Trump National Golf Club at Briar Cliff Manor.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez: To your knowledge, was the President interested in reducing his local real estate bills, tax bills?
Mr. Cohen: Yes.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez: And how did he do that?
Mr. Cohen: What you do is you deflate the value of the asset, and then you put in a request to the tax department for a deduction.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez: Thank you.
Now, in October 2018, The New York Times revealed that, quote, “President Trump participated in dubious tax schemes during the 1990’s, including instances of outright fraud that greatly increased the fortune he received from his parents.” It further stated for Mr. Trump, quote,  “He also helped formulate a strategy to undervalue his parents’ real estate holdings by hundreds of millions of dollars on tax returns, sharply reducing his tax bill when those properties were transferred to him and his siblings.”
Mr. Cohen, do you know whether that specific report is accurate?
Mr. Cohen: I don’t. I wasn’t there in the 1990’s.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez: Who would know the answer to those questions?
Mr. Cohen: Allen Weisselberg.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez: And would it help for the committee to obtain Federal and State tax returns from the President and his company to address that discrepancy?
Mr. Cohen: I believe so.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez: Thank you very much. I yield the rest of my time to the chair.

Here’s the rub: Trump’s dispute with local tax authorities in Westchester County, NY and the disparity in its property valuation goes back more than five years; this is publicly known, amply reported, even discussed here at emptywheel.

Why is it only after the August 2021 election of a new district attorney, Mimi Rocah, took office was the possibility of tax and insurance fraud finally investigated?

The Westchester course is only one of 11 in the U.S., though. They include:

Trump National Golf Club, Bedminster, NJ
Trump National Golf Club, Charlotte, NC
Trump National Golf Club, Colts Neck, NJ
Trump National Golf Club, Hudson Valley, NY
Trump National Golf Club, Jupiter, FL
Trump National Golf Club, Los Angeles, CA
Trump National Doral Golf Club, Miami, FL
Trump International Golf Club, West Palm Beach, FL
Trump National Golf Club, Pine Hill, NJ
Trump National Golf Club, Washington, DC

In reports to the Federal Election Commission, Trump reported more than half of these were worth $50 million or more while regularly suing the snot out of local tax authorities who dared to assess Trump golf courses for values higher than a million or two.

Again, this has been known and reported for years. Trump has and continues to treat every real estate asset as it were the reason for a SLAPP-type suit to cow government to his demands. It’s a pattern.

Why have the local, state, or federal governments failed to investigate these courses in the same way Westchester County is now investigating Trump National Golf Club Westchester?

Especially after Michael Cohen not only testified that golf courses came up as a means to launder payments to Stormy Daniels, and that asset valuations were skewed artificially to reduce Trump’s insurance premiums? It’s not as if there hasn’t been adequate reason to investigate this pattern of deflated asset valuations.

It’s been more than two and a half years since Michael Cohen testified before the House Oversight Committee that the Trump org reported deflated assets to reduce tax exposure while making false statements to the FEC and the public about golf course market value.

How many more years will pass before another domestic Trump golf course is investigated?

Drive for Show, Putt for Dough: Trump’s Accountant’s Putting Method Revealed [UPDATE-3]

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[NB: Check the byline, thanks. This is a work in progress, subject to updates which will be added at the bottom of this post. /~Rayne]

Trump’s numbers guy, Allen Weisselberg, was indicted yesterday. The indictment was unsealed today and it’s revealing — not because there’s any big surprise but because the fifteen counts with which Weisselberg is charged point to the next hole(s) on this course to be played.

You can read the indictment here (thanks to Adam Klasfeld at Law & Crime News).

There are a lot of folks complaining this is puny stuff, whining that the Trump Organization and its CFO Weisselberg are getting away with a lot. Au contraire, mes amis, it’s too soon for such complaints.

Just Security’s Ryan Goodman notes right off the BIG FAT RED BLINKING LIGHTS embedded in the indictment which point to potential federal charges in the offing:

Sure would like to know how those IRS audits are coming along, hmm?

Here’s the thing: Trump, like his father before him, didn’t do something just once. If it worked — and it always has, never resulting in a criminal prosecution until now — Trump did it again. And again. What we see in this indictment is what will be found for every single business under the Trump Organization umbrella.

I will bet good money there will be other individuals who domiciled in New York whose compensation including living expenses were reported fraudulently to city, state, and federal authorities. The implication is right there in the repeated use of the word “defendants,” references to “Unindicted Co-conspirator #1,” and the conspiracy.

Which of the Trump kindred lived in New York and were also employed by a Trump Organization entity? Does this include ex-wives and their children while they lived at home?

As I noted above, this post is subject to updates; I am only through page 12 of the indictment so far. I’ll share a couple disjointed observations here.

— Jesus Christ, they kept goddamned spreadsheets documenting their criming. I feel like I’m watching The Untouchables with Elliott Ness wielding Capone’s bookkeeper’s black book.

— Trump Org paid tuition for Weisselberg’s family members (which was unreported compensation). This smells hinky; I wondered at first if an actual education facility received payment, but it’s likely. And yet this points to another possibility, that “tuition payments” may appear in the Trump Org’s books and not actually have been tuition payments.

— This is just the State of New York; where else did Weisselberg work for Trump beside NYS? Are there other states where Trump Org employees have failed to report their income? We know Florida doesn’t have personal income tax and can’t expect to see similar charges based on income tax evasion. But what about California, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C. where other Trump Org golf courses and resorts are located?

I have to say I’m surprised that Weisselberg never moved as much of the Trump Org’s business as possible to Florida because of the lack of personal income tax. There must be some other reason behind retaining a (unreported) domicile in New York instead of “moving” to Florida or any of the other six eight states which don’t have personal income tax.

Ditto the use of an entity, Trump Payroll Corp. — was this created as another opportunity to skim cash off payroll?

— The indictment spells out a period, “during the period from on or about March 31, 2005, to on or about June 30, 2021” in which the offenses occurred. This is only months after Trump’s tenure on NBC’s The Apprentice began. Is there a correlation between offenses delineated in this indictment and the reality TV series?

Is there something in any of the records related to The Apprentice which is an MGM property, and now possibly owned by Jeff Bezos’ Amazon? ~dark laugh~

I hope you stocked up on popcorn because this is going to be entertaining. We haven’t even gotten to property tax and insurance fraud suggested by Michael Cohen’s appearance before the House Oversight Committee when he testified that Trump understated asset values.

UPDATE-1 — 11:00 AM ET 02-JUL-2021 —

Before I continue I have a couple of asks, thanks for any help you can offer:

— Does anyone have access to Dun & Bradstreet? If you do can you pull up a copy of the profile on Trump Organization? I’ve not pulled a D&B in a while, not certain if it will have history of the enterprise available, but it would be VERY helpful at this point to known who the “executives” were at Trump Org according to D&B. These are likely the same individuals legitimate lending organizations understand to be the policy and decision makers for the holding company structure.

— Does anyone have a copy of proceedings mentioned last night on Maddow? (Shut it, bmaz, we know how you feel about that show.) There was a key nugget in an excerpt last night and I can’t find it because MSNBC no longer uploads their evening programs in full. It may have been a transcript related to the grand jury but I couldn’t give it my full attention at the time; it was important enough that it caught my ear, though. What caught my ear was a throwaway remark that Weisselberg had other sources of income besides Trump Org. [See UPDATE-3 below.]

By now you’ve seen Marcy’s post this morning about Weisselberg’s stagnant income requiring tax evasion. My personal suspicion is that any changes to income levels were being hidden out of sight of local, state, and federal regulators as well as banks just about the point when Trump was beginning to think seriously about a run for POTUS, Trump Org was beginning to experience liquidity problems, AND they were pursuing what I might call euphemistically “alternative financing.” Trump Org purchased 4-5 golf courses in the period 2010-2011 (I need to confirm this number and which courses) which may have required filing of documents related to operating expenses for loans. Weisselberg’s income could have been suppressed on the Trump Org’s books but augmented by income not formally reported as Trump Org payroll.

Which brings me to another observation: the indictment mentions an unindicted co-conspirator. It’s not Trump because in the section Overt Acts under item 2 the indictment reads,

2) On or before April 5, 2010, the Trump Corporation, acting through its agent, Unindicted Coconspirator #1, underreported Allen Weisselberg’s taxable income for the tax year 2009.

The term agent makes it likely it’s Mazars, the accounting firm which did the bookkeeping for Trump Org.

What’s interesting to me looking at the timeline of events: Mazars, an international firm, acquired Weiser, an accounting firm in northeast U.S., in early 2010. It may be something, it may be nothing, but the acquisition happened ahead of the stagnation in Weisselberg’s income. Of course the acquisition didn’t change a history of sketchy financial reporting by Trump Org’s previous accountants, Weiser, and Spahr, Lacher & Berk before Weiser.

The term “executives” — plural — appears throughout the indictment nine times, hence my ask for the D&B profile. D&B’s freebie profile indicates the current executives are:

Eric Trump, Chief Executive Officer
Donald J. Trump Junior, Director
Ivanka Trump, Executive Vice President
A Aamiyahh, Accountant

I wonder if Aamiyahh also qualifies as controller, which may be relevant if more decision making power comes with that title. We don’t know the history of Trump Org’s executives that I’m aware of prior to Trump’s election. Were there any other persons who may also be under scrutiny as one of the “executives,” plural?

As I understand it, the indictment’s first count of grand larceny is based on theft of tax dollars owed not one victim but two — New York State and the IRS. The charge is not in lieu of a federal charge of tax fraud, though.

The multiple counts of falsifying business records have likely set any legitimate financing entities holding Trump Org debt scurrying to check documents on which they predicated lending decisions. One might imagine a liquidity crisis at Trump Org if loans are called in.

Last bit which has been niggling at me which the New York State investigation likely couldn’t encompass: what the hell was the ~$50 million “springing loan” related to Trump’s Chicago Unit Acquisition LLC? How does it fit into the Trump Org’s financial ecosystem?

I’m sure there will be plenty more to come, it’s just a matter of time.

UPDATE-2 — 11:30 AM ET 02-JUL-2021 —

Just had two three thoughts:

— Trump’s revocable trust which was last modified on February 10, 2017 after he assumed office as president doesn’t specify how the trust is revoked. The simplicity and spareness of the document is a massive loophole of sorts; at any given time Trump could give a verbal order and the trust could have been revoked and/or restored; the inclusion of an “ethics advisor” (ha!) is a mere gesture without any real brake on transactions. The two named trustees, Donnie Jr. and Weisselberg, also provide zero checks on this trust given their weaknesses. Ditto Eric Trump’s role as Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Trust; we don’t even know who that board is (could be just Eric).

In short, the trust is like the $50 million “springing loan,” the exact terms of which are unknown to the public. Is it possible the revocable trust and the springing loan are mirror images of each other, an asset in the trust and a debt in the loan, canceling each other out to avoid/evade taxes?

— The word “employees” plural appears 19 times in the indictment of Weisselberg, of which only one use is “executives and employees.” There are some employees who are not executives who must be very itchy right now, besides Weisselberg’s son Barry, the manager of the all-cash operation Wollman Rink.

— If I were a naïve and legitimate paid member of Trump Golf Courses, I’d be panicking. What happens to the tens of thousands of dollars, even hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to become a member (not to be confused with dues or fees related to monthly/annual consumption of services) should the entire Trump holding company structure go bankrupt?

UPDATE-3 — 10:50 PM ET 02-JUL-2021 —

Community member Justlp provided a link to the full transcript for last night’s Maddow show. It contains the snippet I heard which I couldn’t pick apart at the time.

Looking at the transcript I didn’t hear exactly what I thought I heard, but it does raise questions:

The prosecutor says to the judge: While these charges are eligible for bail, we believe there is a flight risk associated with this defendant. So surrender of the passport is necessary to reasonably assure his return to court. This defendant has been and apparently will remain the CFO of a company with international tentacles, and the evidence on this would demonstrate an ample record of travel by private jet and defendant has significant means and connections to support himself outside the jurisdiction, including in places beyond our powers of extradition.

The surrender of the passport is the least restrictive alternative condition that would reasonably assure defendant`s return to court. It`s our understanding that defendant Weisselberg consents to this condition and is prepared to surrender the passport to our investigators.

Emphasis mine — it was this bit in the transcript from the indictment hearing which caught my attention. It wasn’t that he had other income streams but assets and a network outside New York State and the U.S. such that prosecutors think he’s a flight risk.

Was Weisselberg paid enough during his tenure in spite of what reported expenses he had residing in New York, or are we supposed to believe he’s a talented asset manager after hours?

So — What’s New, Rick? Paul? Fresh Indictments Today on Bank, Tax Fraud

/191 Comments/in /by

Open thread for you folks to talk about the latest developments in the Trump-Russia investigation.

Earlier this afternoon, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson rejected the bail package offered by Paul Manafort as the property offered as collateral wasn’t free and clear.

From reports about this rejection there were hints another shoe would drop soon.

Bingo — multiple counts of bank and tax fraud levied against each and both Manafort and his partner, Rick Gates.

Manafort was charged with a count each for each year:
Subscribing to False U.S. Individual Income Tax Returns for years 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014
Failure to File Reports of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts for years 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

Gates was charged with a count each for year:
Assisting in the Preparation of False U.S. Individual Income for 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014
Subscribing to False U.S. Individual Tax Returns for years 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014
Subscribing to False Amended U.S. Individual Tax Returns for 2013
Failure to File Reports of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts for 2011, 2012, 2013

Both Gates and Manafort were charged with one count for each year:
Bank Fraud Conspiracy (Lender B/$3.4 million)
Bank Fraud (Lender B/$3.4 million)
Bank Fraud Conspiracy (Lender C/$1 million)
Bank Fraud (Lender C/$1 million)
Bank Fraud Conspiracy (Lender B/$5.5 million)
Bank Fraud Conspiracy (Lender D/$9.5 million)
Bank Fraud (Lender D/$9.5 million)
Bank Fraud Conspiracy (Lender D/$6.5 million)
Bank Fraud (Lender D/$6.5 million)

That’s 18 counts for Manafort, 23 counts for Gates. (Do check my math, I am working off a ridiculously small mobile device screen – thanks!)

These charges open many questions, but perhaps we ought to spend our time looking at the indictment itself. I know you’ll find parts amusing.

You can read it at this link (pdf).

Quentin Hardy observed via Twitter:

Nice touch in the new indictment: Manafort has “a lavish lifestyle,” while Gates is portrayed as just a simple suburban money launderer.

Better buy up extra popcorn, gang. We’re going to need it.