A New York Attorney General’s Motion to Order an Injunction against the Use of False Investigations by the Trump Organization Using a Public Testimony
Trump Jr., who was compelled by a judge to sit for a deposition, has not publicly described his role preparing the company’s financial statements. His answers shed light on his possible defense to the allegations and he moved away from both documents preparation and accuracy. In his testimony, based on the excerpts, his tone was plain-spoken, and his demeanor appeared casual.
Excerpts of the testimony from Trump Jr., former President Donald Trump and others were included in the New York attorney general’s motion Thursday asking a state judge to grant a preliminary injunction to prevent the Trump Organization from continuing to use what investigators have alleged are fraudulent financial statements unless disclaimers are added and bar the company from shifting assets unless court approved.
Trump said he prepared very little for the deposition and only read a statement after the fact, saying James conducted a fake investigation.
A state attorney asked Trump many questions, including whether he was the president of the Trump Organization, if there was an agreement with his financial officer to prepare years of financial statements that were intentionally overvalued, and if he had an audit done on his finances. He was asked if he personally approved the valuation methods used to value properties. To each question Trump replied, “same answer.”
James wants a New York judge to order a monitor and require court approval before any Trump assets are moved.
Donald Trump Jr., Acquaintance of GAAP, and the Mazars USA, when Trump became a Trusted Person, Decating Tax Returns
Trump Jr. said he began working at the Trump Organization in 2001 after taking a gap year following his graduation from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School with a bachelor’s degree in economics. When his father became the company’s president, he was named one of the three trustees responsible for running the company. He said he now works in Florida.
He said his knowledge of US accounting rules, Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, is limited to what he learned from an “Accounting 101” college course.
“Well, I’m not an accountant, but that they are generally accepted,” he said when asked what he knew about GAAP. I remember that from Accounting 101, so I am sure I can come up with something to kill time, but I would be doing neither of us a favor in educating ourselves.
Trump Jr. suggested that the Trump Organization’s long-time accounting firm Mazars USA, which dropped Trump as a client earlier this year, included disclaimer language in its engagement letter to protect itself against potential future liability. The engagement letter says Trump was responsible for the accuracy of the financial statements.
“It’s sort of seems like an odd thing all of a sudden after 30 years of doing each and every tax return probably to do that,” Trump Jr. testified. “The semantics of the language in the letter, I can’t tell if that was always the language from the engagement letters from 2011 and on, or did it become sort of a, let’s call it, you know, cover-your-ass language later on after 30 years of doing a tax return.”
Those people would have a better idea of what those things are. And whoever was bringing me a document, if it was more accounting, it was probably from accounting. If it was more legal, it would be from legal. And, ‘Hey, are we okay signing this document? Do you believe it to be accurate and honest? He said he would sign it if they were in favor of it.
When asked if a specific reference on a spreadsheet relating to 40 Wall Street could be seen in the New York attorney general’s office, Donald Trump Jr. switched into dealmaker mode.
I leased the building over your right shoulder. And I’d be remiss as a Trump to not point out the lovely real estate that sits right there He said that he got to stare at all day.
“They’re not that down,” Trump Jr. replied. I can still see about 30,000 square foot of a floor plate, and I wonder if you would consider moving office buildings?
A federal judge last week cleared the way for the testimony of the former president after he had already taken steps to delay the case.
Defending Donald TRUMP in a New York Department Store Dress Room: A Civil Lawsuit against Trump in the Post-Congress Reheating Era
In the mid 1990’s, former magazine writer E. Jean CARROLL claimed she was raped by Donald TRUMP in a New York department store dressing room and he accused her of making the accusation to increase sales of her book.
Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled against Trump and DOJ. They asked for it to be reconsidered. Last month a federal appeals court in New York ruled that Trump was a federal employee when he denied Carroll’s claim of rape and sexual assault.
The appeals court in DC was asked to determine if Trump was acting within the scope of his employment when he made the statements. If the DC court approves of Trump, the Justice Department would probably be replaced with a new defendant and the case thrown out. It is not known if or when the DC appeals court will take up the matter.
In civil cases if someone declines to answer questions the jury is allowed to apply an adverse inference against the person when deciding their potential liability.
A civil lawsuit was brought against Donald Trump by protesters who claimed they were injured outside of his first presidential campaign. He is expected to testify in a marketing campaign related lawsuit at the end of the month.
At the trial, which is expected to last more than a month, lawyers for the Trump corporations will say that Mr. Weisselberg went behind the Trump family’s back to avoid paying taxes on the perks, and was not conspiring with the company.
One of the company’s lawyers said that Weisselberg’s acts were done to benefit himself and not to benefit the company. (While the prosecutors could argue that the scheme saved money for the company, which did not pay payroll taxes on the perks, the defense is expected to argue that in fact, the company lost money as a result of the arrangement.)
The lawyers might also argue that Mr. Weisselberg agreed to testify under duress, noting that he could have faced years in prison. The plea deal calls for him to serve five months in jail, but with good behavior, he is likely to spend only 100 days there.
The judge overseeing the case could impose up to fifteen years imprisonment, if he lied on the witness stand, according to his lawyer.
The case in which Mr. Trump was not accused of taking part in the benefits scheme has been described by him as a witch hunt against him.
A judge threw out Trump’s lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee, several ex-FBI officials and more of the people who he claims colluded with him to vilify him with fake information about him to undermine his campaign.
“This, certainly on its face, appears to be objectively frivolous,” said Gerald Greenberg, a partner at Gelber, Schachter and Greenberg, a Florida law firm. No state court in Florida has the authority to stop an investigation being conducted by New York state authorities.
Unable to persuade the Florida lawyers to stand down Wednesday, the Trump Organization’s general counsel, Alan Garten, then took aim at Mr. Epshteyn, blaming him in an email to Mr. Epshteyn and other lawyers for the filing of the suit, said the people with knowledge of the discussion. Frustrations with Mr. Epshteyn among some of Mr. Trump’s other aides and representatives have been brewing for months and boiled over with the new legal action.
The jury who convicted Donald Trump’s namesake companies earlier this week was “serious” and tried to focus on the law – not the former president, one of the jurors said in an interview with CNN.
The Trump Org.’s internal “clean up” of questionable business practices around the time Trump was elected president particularly struck the juror as a red flag.
The juror had a “gut feeling” about their vote going into deliberations but said the jurors agreed they needed to understand the law especially for a few jurors who were “unsure” on some counts. Before reaching a verdict, the jury sent notes asking to read the jury charge again.
“He just he puts like sketchy people around him,” the juror added, reflecting on other Trump comrades like Michael Cohen and Steve Bannon. “I just find it very bizarre. ”
“I was kind of like ‘this seems weird’ and then it confirmed that when they said in the cleanup of 2017, they stopped doing it,” the juror said. “And so I felt like that was a red flag, like the company was clearly doing something that they shouldn’t have been doing so it really sold to the point that it’s a culture of fraud in the company. How could someone working in a company that hasFraud going on from Different angles be doing it for themselves?
The juror added: “There was no doubt that there was a crime committed here. And there, they were all over the place on the defense with passing blame.”
He mimicked Donald Bender’s closing statement in a derogatory way. I thought that was disrespectful and I thought it was not necessary,” the juror said.
The trial was on for six weeks. There were so many things we went through. There was a lot of crime going on in the area and it was not limited to Weisselberg’s W-2.
“If I listened to just the defense and didn’t listen to the prosecution, yeah, I probably would have believed them. But when you go through everything, put everything together, the big picture, looking at the witnesses, like game their credibility, the actual physical evidence I saw, you know, that helps me get to the conclusion.”
The judge wrote that the defense counsel should have known better and said that the court would not impose sanctions.
The judge also rejected the Trumps’ arguments that some of the alleged fraudulent conduct occurred beyond the statute of limitations allowed under the law.
According to people that have spoken with him, Mr. Trump is worried about facing criminal charges, something he worked to avoid since the late 1970s. He learned from his former lawyer how to deal with such threats and he’s still doing it.
The district attorney in Georgia is being investigated by other Black prosecutors for calling Mr. Trump a racist.
The district attorney of Manhattan brought a successful fraud prosecution against Mr. Trump’s company and he is now pursuing criminal charges in the Stormy Daniels case.
Correspondence to the New York Times on the alleged copyright violations in the 2016 midterm elections: The Donald Trump case at Mar-a-Lago
How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. Times staff are not allowed to support or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.
Trump sued journalist Bob Woodward in January 2023 for alleged copyright violations, claiming Woodward had released audio from their interviews without Trump’s consent.
If you don’t have the same resources as a private party, you can settle a civil case and make it go away, but criminal cases are only about money, according to a former U.S. attorney. “Criminal cases are about liberty and justice, and it is really rather difficult — if not impossible — to wear down federal prosecutors and the F.B.I. and make them go away.”
The legal drama surrounding Donald Trump has never been more intense, but it has been almost eight years since he rode down the escalator in Trump Tower.
Daniels received a $130,000 payment from Michael Cohen to keep quiet about an alleged affair with Trump years earlier.
Prosecutors have also looked into potential insurance fraud after new material came to light from the New York attorney general’s civil investigation into the accuracy of the Trump Organization’s financial statements, people close to the investigation told CNN’s Kara Scannell in January.
Special counsel Jack Smith is overseeing the Justice Department’s criminal investigations into the retention of national defense information at Trump’s resort and into parts of the January 6, 2021, insurrection.
The Justice Department investigation continues into whether documents from the Trump White House were illegally mishandled when they were taken to Mar-a-Lago in Florida after he left office. Potential witnesses have been interviewed about how Trump handled the documents.
At least 15 boxes of White House records had been recovered from Mar-a-Lago, including some classified records according to the National Archives.
Any unauthorized retention or destruction of White House documents could violate a criminal law that prohibits the removal or destruction of official government records, legal experts told CNN.
The 2020 Georgia General Election Trial Trial: A Grand Jury Investigation of Donald Trump’s 2021 Call to Biden to Overturn the Georgia Senate Election Results
The probe was launched in 2021 following Trump’s call that January with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which he pushed the Republican to “find” votes to overturn the election results.
Trump has fought to keep his advisers from testifying about conversations they had because of executive and attorney-client privileges.
Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis oversaw a special grand jury investigating what Trump or his allies may have done in their efforts to overturn Biden’s victory in Georgia.
The grand jury issued a report – which remains mostly under seal – that found there was no widespread voter fraud in the state and also suggested perjury charges be considered against some people who testified.
On January 6th, the day after the US Capitol attack, the House select committee uncovered evidence of Trump’s actions prior to and after the election.
In a symbolic move, the committee referred Trump to the Justice Department on at least four criminal charges before it concluded at the end of 2022, ahead of Republicans taking control of the House.
Former Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg pleaded guilty to his role in the tax scheme and was sentenced to five months at Rikers Island. He will be released this summer.
Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and has called the investigation politically motivated based on the electoral ambitions of James, a Democrat.
The trial over the initial lawsuit has been delayed due to the legal battle and the second trial is set to begin in April.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/20/politics/donald-trump-legal-clouds/index.html
Michael Cohen’s suit against the Justice Department alleges that Trump and Barr acted legally in self-incriminating comments about the Covid-19 campaign
There are several lawsuits accusing Trump of violating the laws of Washington, such as making statements that would lead to riots and disorderly conduct.
Trump and his advisers did not commit any crimes. The former president and others have been sued for the actions of a group of people in the Capitol.
The former counterintelligence official, who was dismissed by the FBI after it was revealed he had exchanged anti- Trump messages with a lawyer, has filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department.
The lawsuit lacks substance, legal support, and the desire to substitute hyperbole in order to settle scores and grievances, US District Judge Donald Middlebrooks wrote.
The former president and his attorneys were ordered to pay over one million dollars in sanctions for bringing the case.
Middlebrooks wrote, “No reasonable lawyer would have filed it.” The counts of the amended complaint were not intended for a political purpose.
Trump, William Barr and others are accused of putting Michael Cohen back in jail to prevent him from promoting his upcoming book while under home confinement.
Cohen was serving the remainder of his sentence for lying to Congress and campaign violations at home, due to Covid-19 concerns, when he started an anti-Trump social media campaign in summer 2020. Cohen said he was sent back to prison after being retaliated against.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/20/politics/donald-trump-legal-clouds/index.html
Defending against the 2022 Supreme Court Action against the U.S. Tax Cut Cuts and Other Decrees of the Taxpayer
In November of 2022, a New York state judge threw out the lawsuit, stating that Mary Trump’s claims were barred by her earlier settlement. Mary Trump has appealed.
The Times said in a statement that their coverage of Donald Trump’s taxes helped inform the public. We are going to vigorously defend against the lawsuit because it is an attempt to silence independent journalism.