Category: The Trump Organization

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Crime Donald Trump Donald Trump Jr. Eric Trump The Trump Organization

New York Fraud Ruling Could Lead To Don, Don Jr., And Eric Losing Their Homes: Report

Based on a hearing held today in a New York court, it seems that former president Donald Trump and his two oldest sons, Don Jr. and Eric, could soon be without a place to live if the judge overseeing the case decides to sell their homes in order to pay off a $250 million dollar fine being requested by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Business Insider reports that real estate in the form of residences was one of the issues before New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, who was asked if the Trump homes were on the table.

“I’m not prepared to make a ruling at this time,” Engoron told Trump’s lawyers with a slight smile, shifting the focus of the hearing instead on more mundane matters of pre-trial logistics.

At stake is what assets belonging to Trump, his sons, and the Trump Organization are subject to be liquidation. Would it only be business properties, or are homes included, too?

But there was no guidance on how dissolution will work in a multi-billion-dollar organization whose assets include not just interests in skyscrapers – such as Trump Tower in Manhattan, where Trump Org is based, and a ground lease in 40 Wall Street – but home addresses, too.

“Certain of the entities, entities that own physical assets like Trump Tower and 40 Wall – is the court under the impression that those are to be sold or are they to be managed under the monitor?” Trump attorney Chris Kise asked Engoron. 

It was at this point the judge said he was not yet prepared to make a ruling.

Kise asked, “Which entities are covered here? You have New York entities that just own a house or a townhouse. Maybe Don Jr. ‘s or Eric’s residence… are those covered?” 

Engoron said any decision on those questions would have to wait.

Imagine, for just a moment, the ex-president having to sell his penthouse condo at Trump Tower and also being ordered to put his Mar-a-Lago resort up for sale. Where would the Donald live? We he be forced to move in with Ivanka and Jared? Or would he have to try and find a new location in Florida to use as his residence?

One thing is clear: There’s about to be a massive fire sale at the Trump Organization, and when it’s all over with, Donald and members of his family may not have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of.

 

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Crime Donald Trump The Trump Organization

Trump Organization Facing Legal ‘Death Penalty’ From New York Attorney General

Now that she has concrete evidence that Donald Trump and the Trump Organization have been engaged in systematic financial fraud, New York Attorney General Letitia James may be on the verge of imposing the legal “death penalty” on the ex-president’s corporation, according to a former U.S. Attorney.

Joyce Vance, who served as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama from 2009 to 2017, was a guest on MSNBC, and she was asked by host Chris Jansing about news that Trump’s former accounting firm, Mazars, has dropped him as a client and declared that his financial statements cannot be trusted:

“So Joyce, let me go to the Trump Organization statement, which is that, ‘this confirmation effectively rendered the investigation by the [Manhattan] DA and the AG. moot.’ Does it?”

Vance replied:

“It absolutely doesn’t, Chris, and one of the intriguing issues here is how did New York’s attorney general come into possession of this letter, which was sent from Trump’s accountant to the Trump Organization? She’s not cc’d on the letter; your accounting firm doesn’t typically send business correspondence to the attorney general in your state.”

Vance added:

“So there’s a suggestion here that Mazars is engaged with the New York attorney general. This whole issue came up as [NY AG] Letitia James was trying to take the depositions of Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Ivanka Trump, and she’s been forced to justify that position by the Trump folks in the course of that litigation and this document has come out now.”

And then Vance explained how AG James can put a quick end to the Trump Organization:

“Details of other transactions that are highly questionable, and that may be sharp business practices or fraud, but James is likely to get her depositions, and she, of course, has jurisdiction under New York’s Martin Act to protect New York from sharp business practices. she has the authority to curtail businesses’ ability to operate, and even as she did with Trump’s charitable fund, to no longer permit them to operate in the state of New York. So the consequences here, just on the civil side, could be dramatic. The criminal investigation will proceed at its own pace.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7-NExoEcIg&feature=emb_logo

What is the Martin Act? It’s a piece of legislation passed in 1921 that is considered to be the “most severe blue sky law” in the country:

The Martin Act, as interpreted by New York courts, gives the New York State Attorney General exceptionally broad enforcement authority to bring both civil and criminal action without a showing of scienter or intent to defraud.

One of the penalties under the Martin Act is the complete shutdown of a business and forfeiture of its assets. That’s why it’s considered a legal “death penalty” if imposed.

Here’s hoping Letitia James does indeed shut down Trump Org. and then proceed to lock up every member of the company who was involved in this widespread fraud.

 

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Business Donald Trump The Trump Organization

Trump Tower Tenants Refusing To Pay Their Rent And Moving Out

Not so many years ago, Trump Tower was one of the most prestigious addresses in all of Manhattan. There was 100% occupancy and a waiting list to rent even the smallest spaces in the building.

But those days are gone, and Trump Tower is now at less than 75% occupancy, the lowest level since 2013, and a sign that times are indeed tight for the Trump Organization, which is facing a major loan payment later this year, the Washington Post reports:

“In its midsection, Trump Tower is something more prosaic: a Manhattan office building, with 12 floors available for lease. The Trump Organization’s headquarters occupies two other office floors.

“The leased floors serve as part of the collateral for one of Trump’s biggest outstanding debts, a $100 million loan with the full amount due next year, according to data kept by the real estate analysis firm Trepp.”

One of the former tenants that went belly up, ironically, was Marc Fisher Footwear, which used to manufacture shoes that carried the name of Ivanka Trump:

“But earlier this year, the Trump Organization sued Marc Fisher Footwear for unpaid rent. The suit said the shoemaker had stopped paying rent in November 2020, and owed more than $1.4 million.”

One tenant, however, is indeed paying their rent on time and at an exorbitant rate: The Make America Great Again PAC, which rents the 15th floor of Trump Tower, providing $37,541.67 a month in guaranteed revenue for Trump and his company, which some suggest may be legal but is certainly not kosher:

“He’s running a con,” said Paul S. Ryan, a campaign-finance expert at the watchdog group Common Cause. “Talking about political expenses — but, in reality, raising money for self-enrichment.”

Then again, Donald Trump has always run a con. In his days as a real estate mogul, he was doing little more than leveraging properties with borrowed money so he could pay off other loans he owed to other banks.

It’d be tempting to call Trump’s entire life a giant Ponzi scheme, but that’d be an insult to anyone who ever ran one of those.

 

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Crime Donald Trump Espionage Justice Department The Trump Organization

Subpoena Of Trump Org. Suggests DOJ Thinks Donald Tried To Sell Classified Docs: Legal Expert

Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith issued a subpoena today for records from the Trump Organization dating back to 2017, including foreign financial records from seven countries, according to The New York Times.

It remains unclear precisely what the prosecutors were hoping to find by sending the subpoena to Mr. Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, or when it was issued. But the subpoena suggests that investigators have cast a wider net than previously understood as they scrutinize whether he broke the law in taking sensitive government materials with him upon leaving the White House and then not fully complying with demands for their return.

The Times also reports that the Trump Organization has real estate licensing and development deals in China, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.

What could be the purpose of the subpoenas of the Trump Organization? That was the question posed to Former Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal, who appeared on MSNBC and said he believes the disgraced former president may have tried to sell the documents to foreign nations.

“Just about ten minutes ago, on air, I said to you that the stolen documents case against Donald Trump is his biggest threat, and that it gets stronger with every passing day,” Katyal noted. “I guess it’s getting stronger with every passing minute because, in the last ten minutes, it appears to have gotten even stronger.”

Katyal added, “Basically, the background here is the prosecutor’s fear, the public’s fear, that Donald Trump monetizes everything. He monetized Jan. 6th, of all things. He monetizes his impeachment and the like. So, I think the prosecutor’s concern here has been when he took these highly sensitive classified documents, was he trying to monetize those as well?”

The new subpoena also suggests there could be even more serious criminal charges coming against the previously indicted ex-president, Katyal explained.

“What this says is perhaps there is even more. There is a whole other set of potential criminal charges.

“Of course, this is just early reporting, but basically, what this reporting is saying is that since 2017, the prosecutors were looking at Trump’s conduct while in office, while president and after he left office. So, they’re not just looking at the Stormy Daniels kind of time period, which is before Trump took office, or the inflation of real estate assets, which was before Trump took office. They’re looking now at presidential and post-presidential conduct.”

If indeed it can be proven that Trump sold such documents to foreign nations, that would mean the ex-president is a traitor and could be locked up for the rest of his life, along with any Trump Org. officials who might have taken part in the scheme.

 

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Crime Donald Trump The Trump Organization

Former Trump Org. CFO Fires His Attorneys And Appears Ready To Flip On The Donald: Report

Former Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg dumped his Trump-funded attorneys, according to reports from Newsweek and WNBC, the surest sign yet that he’s flipped on the failed former president and is ready to cooperate with prosecutors investigating alleged wrongdoing at the company.

The timing of Weisselberg parting ways with his Trump lawyers has resulted in suggestions he may have been about to, or already has, flipped on the former president, so the 75-year-old doesn’t end up spending more time in prison. Weisselberg already agreed to testify in The Trump Organization fraud trial in exchange for his potential jail sentence being reduced from 15 years to five months, but he didn’t implicate the former president.

Karen Agnifilo, former chief assistant district attorney of the Manhattan D.A.’s office, told MSNBC the move by Weisselberg is a significant development.

“It can mean one of two things. Number one, the case is over and doesn’t need lawyers anymore, they were just representing them on that one case,” Agnifilo said. “Or, more likely, is there was this pressure campaign put on him saying while he’s in Rikers, ‘do you like being there? Because we’re about to bring other charges.’

“If he testified in the grand jury, you wouldn’t necessarily know it because he’d be brought into the backdoor because he’s incarcerated,” Agnifilo added. “So unlike the other people Michael Cohen, or [attorney] Bob Costello, who told people that testified and we know about them because we see them going in and out of the building. You wouldn’t necessarily see Allen Weisselberg. So it’s possible he’s already testified, we just don’t know.”

The move by Weisselberg may also explain why a grand jury empaneled by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg hasn’t yet indicted Trump. Bragg could be planning to have the former Trump Org. CFO testify before the panel as a way of strengthening the case against the one-term ex-president.