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New York's AG thinks Trump fraud is a family affair. What's past is prologue.
This will be fun to watch
Link to tweet
New York Attorney General Letitia James released a court filing Tuesday outlining what she believes to be a pattern of fraud perpetrated by the Trump Organization and specifically Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump. James’ civil investigation is running parallel to a criminal investigation the Manhattan district attorney’s office is conducting into the Trump Organization’s activities; between the two, it seems that the Trump family may finally face some type of accountability for what prosecutors allege amounts to years of malfeasance and corruption. (A spokesperson for the Trump Organization said "the allegations are baseless and will be vigorously defended”; lawyers for Ivanka and Donald Jr. say they will continue to fight James’ investigation.)
That the Trumps are in hot water again isn’t surprising. What’s more surprising is that they haven’t faced any consequences before now. The former president’s business empire has a history of misrepresentation to lenders, government agencies and the public, and this isn’t his first experience with law enforcement. (The Trump Organization settled with the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Unit in 1998 after it determined that the company had broken anti-money laundering laws.) This history of dealing with law enforcement actually goes back even further. The federal government accused Trump; his father, Fred; and Trump Management of racial discrimination in housing because they refused to rent apartments to Black people. (The Trumps settled.),,,,,
Connolly’s thesis was that Trump was able to get bank loans he wasn’t qualified for by using the media to advance the notion that he was worth far more than he was. No one bothered to do a full financial audit of him, not even his accountants at Arthur Andersen. Connolly attributes a lot of this to gullibility on the part of the media and Trump’s lenders, who made assumptions about his net worth and used Trump’s own questionable estimates of his asset values and never bothered to check whether he was telling the truth. Or maybe it was a kind of willful financial delusion that everyone assumed would ultimately be profitable.....
According to James, the Trump children are alleged to be involved, too. Ivanka, who is named in James’ filing, was the point person for all of the Trump Organization’s dealings with Deutsche Bank, and according to the attorney general’s office, she caused misleading statements to be submitted to the bank. Donald Jr., a manager of the Trump Organization and a trustee of the Donald Trump Revocable Trust, is also alleged to have been responsible for statements with misleading asset valuations.
That the Trumps are in hot water again isn’t surprising. What’s more surprising is that they haven’t faced any consequences before now. The former president’s business empire has a history of misrepresentation to lenders, government agencies and the public, and this isn’t his first experience with law enforcement. (The Trump Organization settled with the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Unit in 1998 after it determined that the company had broken anti-money laundering laws.) This history of dealing with law enforcement actually goes back even further. The federal government accused Trump; his father, Fred; and Trump Management of racial discrimination in housing because they refused to rent apartments to Black people. (The Trumps settled.),,,,,
Connolly’s thesis was that Trump was able to get bank loans he wasn’t qualified for by using the media to advance the notion that he was worth far more than he was. No one bothered to do a full financial audit of him, not even his accountants at Arthur Andersen. Connolly attributes a lot of this to gullibility on the part of the media and Trump’s lenders, who made assumptions about his net worth and used Trump’s own questionable estimates of his asset values and never bothered to check whether he was telling the truth. Or maybe it was a kind of willful financial delusion that everyone assumed would ultimately be profitable.....
According to James, the Trump children are alleged to be involved, too. Ivanka, who is named in James’ filing, was the point person for all of the Trump Organization’s dealings with Deutsche Bank, and according to the attorney general’s office, she caused misleading statements to be submitted to the bank. Donald Jr., a manager of the Trump Organization and a trustee of the Donald Trump Revocable Trust, is also alleged to have been responsible for statements with misleading asset valuations.
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