Ah, the sweet smell of indictment:

[Joinfortmill]

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-14-2022

"The Mazars letter told the Trump organization that Trump’s financial statements from years ending June 2011 through June 2020 could not be relied upon to be accurate,...that they were not reliable"

Lawyer George Conway interpreted the letter for non-lawyers. He tweeted:

'decision regarding the financial…statements’=they are false because you lied
'totality of the circumstances’=the D.A. is serious
‘non-waivable conflict of interest’=we are now on team D.A.
‘not able to provide new work product’=sorry we’re not going to jail for you”

[Diamond_Dog]

1. So

They worked with this mess for ten years and only now that there’s a threat of legal action, they are quitting?

[barbtries]

9. well, yes.

is that problematic?

they just found their ethics a couple days ago.

[patphil]

18. It was in the back of the fridge, right behind the golden blossom honey.

[lame54]

23. Good thing Janice from accounting didn't eat it

[HariSeldon]

11. Banks won't trust them now

Their business is going to take a serious hit. The alternative must be more serious. I can just imagine the scene:

"Hi. I'd like a personal loan."

"Oh? What does your financial condition look like?"

"My financial position is pretty good. See, I have the statement of it from Mazars USA."

Bank officer collapses into chair laughing. "It took ten years and a law enforcement action for them to realize Trump had lied to them. You think that paper is worth anything?"

[CaptainTruth]

13. Trump must have been paying them!

Unlike his contractors, several lawyers, & who knows who else.

[GB_RN]

16. I Posted This In Another Thread...

This Is The Kind Of Thing That Killed Arthur Andersen...

Which was the accounting firm for Enron, back in the early 00s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Andersen, "[f]ollowing the 2001 scandal in which energy giant Enron was found to have reported $100bn in revenue through institutional and systematic accounting fraud, Andersen's performance and alleged complicity as an auditor came under intense scrutiny. The Powers Committee (appointed by Enron's board to look into the firm's accounting in October 2001) came to the following assessment: 'The evidence available to us suggests that Andersen did not fulfill its professional responsibilities in connection with its audits of Enron's financial statements, or its obligation to bring to the attention of Enron's Board (or the Audit and Compliance Committee) concerns about Enron's internal contracts over the related-party transactions'."

Acting as accountant for the tRump organization (and as tRump's personal accountant, IIRC) Mazars had a legal duty to report dubious/fraudulent accounting practices by tRump and they didn't do so. They're reacting this way now, in order to try and stem any legal ramifications (possibly as part of a back door cooperation agreement).

See, shit like this is why they have to teach "business ethics" in business school. Obviously, those lessons don't sink in. Ethics, rules and laws are only for the little guys, I guess. 🙄

[flying_wahini]

24. I had completely forgotten about Andersen going down in the Enron case.

Good catch.

[stopdiggin]

28. the flames got uncomfortably near ... -(nt)-

[Wicked Blue]

2. They're admitting the books were cooked nt

[Irish_Dem]

4. And it would have gone unnoticed until they got Trumped.

[Irish_Dem]

3. It is amazing how many people help wealthy criminals commit their crimes.

And put themselves at risk.

They must do it all the time and have no consequences.

[malaise]

30. THIS!

Greed kills

[Irish_Dem]

32. Apparently they don't usually get caught. And they make so much money, they take the risk.

So a wealthy firm with connections can avoid prosecution.
I guess all bets are off with a high profile case.

And it is so lucrative they keep doing it.

[Tickle]

5. Then why did they

prepare his taxes?

[GB_RN]

17. Ask Arthur Anderson, LLP, Why They Cooked The Books For Enron...

And see what answer you get. If you could actually get a response from anyone who worked for them (what remains of the company is now known as Accenture), and if they were honest, they'd probably say it was all about the $$.

Business ethics classes are a requirement at every business school. And the vast majority of graduates are actually ethically and morally decent people. But, there are those sociopaths to whom you can preach and teach to all day long but the ultimate response will be, "Ethics? Never heard of him." Then there are those who are borderline, and will usually do the right thing, but for whom the temptation of money and power is just too much.

Greed...it's a distinctly human trait. "If one monkey hoarded all the bananas, we'd study it to see why. When a person does it, we put them on the cover of Forbes."

[Blue Owl]

6. Breathe it in deep.... Ahhhhh....

[Strelnikov_]

7. A crises of plausable deniability

The risk of jail now outweighs the green.

[liberalla]

8. Ahhh thank you George Conway for the translation! It's a beautiful thing!

Now we're getting somewhere! The vise tightens....

[dchill]

10. Eau de Trumpsweat.

[malaise]

31. I'm stealing that

DUzy! 😄😄

[dchill]

35. You are more than welcome! It's not "Slobfather" level!

[malaise]

36. I stole that too

from Thucythucy1

[dchill]

37. Ha!

[SergeStorms]

12. No indictment yet.

I pray to everyone's gods it happens. Finally. No family deserves to spend time in prison more than the Trumps.

[hippywife]

26. I feel the same.

After all the shit they've pulled, and all of the times we thought, "Surely, that's illegal. Got 'em!" I'll believe it when it happens and not a moment before.

[mwooldri]

14. Marriott, IHG, and Hilton need to start visiting the Trump properties.

With a measuring tape and to figure out what to offer in a bankruptcy sale of these Trump properties.

[leftieNanner]

15. Now THAT would be worth celebrating!

Financial ruin for The Orange One!

[lagomorph777]

33. Renovation costs would be very high.

Stripping out all the tacky brass-plated ornamentation and repairing all the neglected roof leaks, etc would probably reduce the property to just a tear-down.

[mwooldri]

34. Cheap solution...

Rename hotel a Motel 6 "Presidential Inn and Suites". Patch the leaks. Keep the gaudiness.

[twodogsbarking]

19. The Trump spin will be that the accounting firm

is at fault and he will sue them. Wait for it.

[fightforfreedom]

20. You got that right.

One problem, It will not work, it will not save Trump.

[Scrivener7]

21. No question. But it seems like what they are saying is that the

faulty numbers were provided by the tfg's company.

[Marthe48]

22. In a battle of legal wits

you should not come unarmed.

Also, if you're backing a civil war, be sure your dear leaders are screwing you sideways.

[LuckyCharms]

25. The accountants may or may not be at risk.

If they served the Trump organization by expressing an unqualified opinion of their financial statements, then the accounting firm could be at legal risk.

If they served the Trump organization by expressing a qualified opinion of their financial statements, but the qualifications did not include the specific items which they are speaking about now, then the accounting firm could be at legal risk.

If the accounting firm merely performed compilation services for the Trump organization, then they may not be at any risk.

When an accounting firm compiles a financial statement for a client, they merely take whatever financial data the client gives them, compiles that data into financial statements which conform to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, but perform no audit of the statements, and express no opinion as to the accuracy of the statements.

When approving commercial loans, banks prefer financial statements that are audited by a CPA firm and have an opinion expressed as to their accuracy. However, banks will sometimes accept statements compiled by an accountant and factor this into their risk model when deciding whether to approve a loan. Whether compiled statements are accepted by the lender depends on several things, including the past relationship held with the entity seeking the loan, and the performance of that entity's past loans.

[stopdiggin]

27. thanks. succinct and on target

But one has to think that something changed (rather abruptly) in that relationship and process - to generate such a statement. Do you agree? Or is that still a faulty assumption?

[LuckyCharms]

29. My guess, which could most certainly be wrong...

is that the accounting firm simply was doing compilation statements, which do not contain an opinion on their accuracy one way or another. These compiled statements were probably given to lenders for years in order to analyze potential loan risk.

Then, I'm betting that Trump's loans began underperforming with late payments, defaults, and deterioration of collateral. After that, the banks stopped lending to him, so he had to seek other sources of funds (Russia?).

Then Michael Cohen spoke about how the Trump organization over/under inflates financial data, depending on the purpose it was used for.

Then...all of this other shady shit broke as news about the Trump organization.

At this point, I'm assuming that the accounting firm essentially said "Fuck this, we can't in any way be associated with this organization". The accounting firm then issued the statement and ceased performing any and all accounting services for Trump.

I'm betting that all of the organization's financial statements have always been simply compilations because I cannot see Trump letting a team of CPAs get close enough to his records to do a proper audit and express either a qualified or unqualified opinion. Because of Trump's personal relationships with banking executives, his loans somehow made it through loan committee approval. Once his loans started failing, it was all over between Trump and the banks.

Even though compiled statements are simply the accountant grouping and presenting information given to him by Trump, I would imagine they carry at least a small amount of risk to the accountant. Even compilations require the accountant to have an idea of how the client's business operates, and what type of internal controls they have in general. Gross misstatements provided by the client should be questioned by the accountant if they stick out like a sore thumb. if the client refuses to answer, or provides an unsatisfactory answer, the accountant should refuse to do the compilation (assuming 100% ethics).

All of this is my opinion only.

I don't think it was ONE specific situation which caused the accountants to bail out, but rather, a build-up of many situations.