Of all the people here, well you and a few others... with 1/2 an iq, I'd have thought you would have read Cohen's book by now. I mean I love how the media is sensationalizing the whole "basement" thing here like it's breaking news. Previously unheard. Basements do have a certain conspiratorial charm I guess when it comes to tabloid scandals. Cohen covered this in his book over a year ago. I'm not minimizing what was in the boxes one way or the other... Just laughing at the press. The boxes they’d returned were in a storage unit in the basement of his Trump-owned building—incidentally, the same building where Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner keep an apartment. So I went down to look. “Oh my god,” I said when I opened the third. I’d hit the mother lode. In the third box were three years of Trump’s financial statements, from 2011 through 2013 Not a lawyer myself, but I do like to bet.... and I'd bet a zillion that came out in Cohen's trial. Or at least one of his depositions. Of course I could be wrong. It did make the book though.
Everyone loves a cellar dweller mystery. And you'll note that the article headline refers to new evidence - as in, just discovered. I think you've been watching too many episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Lighten up and join in on the fun.
A Judge Just Issued This Head-Turning Ultimatum To The Trump Organization https://www.thelist.com/615792/a-ju...-to-the-trump-organization/?zsource=smartnews
Trump Organization Honcho Allen Weisselberg Has One Defense: Gross Incompetence The last time Allen Weisselberg was under a spotlight, he told New York state investigators he signed documents without reading them—and didn’t realize he was a charity’s director. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump...has-one-defense-gross-incompetence?ref=scroll When Donald Trump’s charity was caught making an illegal political donation years ago, his longtime right-hand finance man, Allen Weisselberg, signed a letter to law enforcement that chalked it up as a mere mistake. In reality, as The Daily Beast recently revealed, employees were well aware that the money was going to a Florida politician. When the Trump Foundation made its annual tax filings with New York state that incorrectly listed that donation—making it seem like it was going to a legitimate nonprofit—Weisselberg signed off on the document, he said, without actually reviewing it. By scribbling his signature with a thin black pen, he affirmed that he’d “reviewed this report” to make sure it was “true, correct, and complete.” As Weisselberg would later say, the truth was he hadn’t even read it. “I may have just glanced through it,” he told investigators during a sworn interview in October 2017. In fact, Weisselberg claimed to not even realize he was one of only three board members of the multimillion-dollar charity for 15 years. “I'm not a director,” he swore. “I’m just a treasurer.” Such is the standard operating procedure of the now-indicted chief financial officer of the Trump Organization. Although his current legal strategy in his tax fraud case has yet to be revealed—with his lawyers merely describing the prosecution as “flawed”—this past behavior shows that his primary defense has basically been gross negligence. A disregard for oversight. Carelessness. Incompetence. The Daily Beast utilized a public records request to acquire a complete copy of a transcript of Weisselberg’s day-long interview with government lawyers from the New York Attorney General’s office. Only snippets of the interview were previously available in publicly accessible court records, but we requested the files directly from the AG’s office by citing the state’s Freedom of Information Law and got them a week later. The attorney general’s office is currently teaming up with the Manhattan district attorney to criminally prosecute Weisselberg and the company for allegedly dodging taxes by giving employees expensive benefits off the books. But the interview The Daily Beast acquired through a public records request dates back to a previous investigation by the AG’s office, which resulted in the dissolution of the Trump Foundation for improperly mixing politics and charitable funds. Weisselberg’s interaction offers a preview of what the Trump executive could show at his scheduled trial for criminal tax fraud—that is, if prosecutors don’t manage to flip him against his boss. The 227-page examination further proves what multiple sources have said for months: Weisselberg is a man devoutly loyal to Trump who sits atop the company’s operations and exerts firm control. But when pressed about questionable behavior, Weisselberg repeatedly feigns ignorance, even to the point of incompetence. However, those who know Weisselberg best—like his divorced daughter-in-law—say the real Weisselberg is a domineering figure who constantly ponders setbacks and devises contingency plans, keeping a watchful eye on every piece on the chessboard. Contrary to Allen Weisselberg’s seeming defense, he’s not at all a bumbling accountant, said Jennifer Weisselberg, who was married to the CFO’s son for years. “He’s a liar,” she told The Daily Beast. “Allen is controlling. He has to know where every dollar goes. He can’t handle not overseeing every dollar. And he’s not going to sign something unless he knows what it says. He knows exactly what’s going on. He doesn’t want any loose ends.” In his sit-down with investigators back in 2017, however, Weisselberg described his role in the Trump world in the simplest of terms. “My responsibilities are really outlined carefully. So I did what I would normally do for any one of our companies: Keep the money relatively liquid in a safe place,” he said. As he detailed in this 2017 examination, Weisselberg is tasked with that responsibility because of the long track record he’s got with the Donald himself. As he told investigators, Weisselberg got his start with the Trump family just three years after he graduated with a bachelor’s in business administration from Pace College (now formally recognized as a university). He did brief stints teaching, working at a small certified public accounting firm, and doing financial work at a stock brokerage firm before he finally landed at Fred Trump’s real estate business in Brooklyn, Trump Management Inc., in 1973. Weisselberg would stay there for 13 years until the occasional work he did on the side for the patriarch’s son finally pulled him away for good. As Weisselberg recalled to investigators about Donald Trump: “He asked his father a number of times to have me come and help him do my accounting or whatever. And his father kept saying, ‘Get your own guy, you don’t need him, leave him alone.’ That went on for a few years.” When Weisselberg concluded that he “didn’t like the way things were being run, the way investments were being made” under Fred Trump’s new company controller in 1986, he jumped ship and went off with Donald Trump instead. “I wanted to make sure things were being done properly for the family,” Weisselberg recalled to investigators, hinting at the unwavering devotion he’s maintained to the Trump clan. As the years went by, Trump elevated him from controller to chief financial officer, eventually placing him as a director on several iterations of his corporation across the world. Weisselberg stuck around while Trump’s casinos and first two marriages crashed and burned, navigating the bankruptcies and divorces. Two former associates say Weisselberg became the only person Trump truly trusted with his money. That fealty manifested itself in the way Weisselberg would even stay within the Don’s proximity on weekends—just in case he was needed—by tagging along on the CEO’s weekend plane trips to Mar-a-Lago. Jennifer Weisselberg—who married Allen’s son, Barry—recalled how the CFO would pace nervously on Sunday mornings and insist on boarding the plane before his boss to always be present and at the ready, because he understood that his value lay in his steadfast presence by Trump’s side. “His whole life is Donald. He literally thinks the sun rises and sets with him. Allen was the deal guy who made sure that the company and Donald are protected,” she told The Daily Beast. “That was his whole game. He’d cut deals with insurers to save a few bucks on each employee, then he’d go to Donald and say: ‘I’m saving you money, I’m saving you, I’m saving you.’” At nearly every step of the way, Weisselberg kept his own right-hand man, an accountant by the name of Jeffrey S. McConney—the Trump Organization controller who earned a reputation as a loyal foot soldier in the closely guarded family business and now finds himself repeatedly brought before a Manhattan grand jury in an attempt to leverage him as a witness against the company and its officers. Several close associates of the pair have told The Daily Beast about the dynamic between them, with Trump nailing business deals, Weisselberg lining up financing, and McConney cutting the checks. That relationship is seen in operation in the accounts collected by the New York AG lawyers who separately interviewed Weisselberg and McConney. Take the two main blunders that finally doomed the Trump Foundation by illegally mixing charity work with politics: One, the much-touted veterans fundraiser that Trump did in Des Moines, Iowa, that used his charity to boost his political campaign one week before the 2016 Iowa caucuses. And two, the $25,000 check that Trump’s charity donated to support then-Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi’s re-election campaign in 2013, just as she faced the possibility of investigating his Trump University scandal. As previously reported by The Daily Beast, McConney readily admitted to investigators that those things shouldn’t have been done, absorbing the blame for his department’s actions. Meanwhile, Weisselberg distanced himself from both episodes, making himself out to merely be a signatory with little knowledge of the machinations beneath him. When pressed during his examination to explain his role on the day Trump held his problem-riddled fundraiser for veterans—in which Weisselberg and McConney scrambled to fly to Iowa armed with a checkbook—Weisselberg largely dismissed the whole ordeal. “We were in the audience, if that’s considered assisting. I don’t believe it is,” Weisselberg told investigators. Weisselberg squirmed during his examination when an investigator probed the illegal political donation to support Florida’s AG. The assistant attorney general, Steven Shiffman, ratcheted up the pressure when he noted that Bondi’s crew had actually sent the Trump Foundation a tax form clearly noting that the money was intended for a political group. “You know, clerks that work in the department, I can’t tell you they do things perfectly all the time, whether they keep things, don’t keep things, know what’s important, what’s not important,” Weisselberg told investigators. “They pay bills. So I don’t know what she determined. I never saw this at the time. Whether she kept it in a file or not, I never saw it.” Weisselberg, who currently faces tax fraud charges in the current joint AG-DA investigation, is now being forced to explain something he certainly should know more about: how he ended up with company-provided luxury apartments, cars, and school tuition for grandkids that never ended up in his taxes. His legal defense team, which dodged the press during a recent court hearing, has issued statements noting their position that the indictment “is full of unsupported and flawed factual and legal assertions.”
On the Georgia indictment front... Criminal inquiry into Trump’s Georgia election interference gathers steam The disgraced former president faces a range of possible charges – including conspiracy and election fraud https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...-investigations-georgia-election-interference Donald Trump is facing increasing legal scrutiny in the crucial battleground state of Georgia over his attempt to sway the 2020 election there, and that heat is now overlapping with investigations in Congress looking at the former president’s efforts to subvert American democracy. A criminal investigation into Trump’s 2 January call prodding Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to “just find” him 11,780 votes to block Joe Biden’s win in the state is making headway. The Georgia district attorney running the inquiry is now also sharing information with the House committee investigating the 6 January attack on the Capitol in Washington DC. Meanwhile, a justice department taskforce investigating threats to election officials nationwide has launched inquiries in Georgia, where election officers and workers received death threats or warnings of violence, including some after Trump singled out one official publicly for not backing his baseless fraud claims. Despite these investigations, Trump is still pushing bogus fraud claims in Georgia. Trump wrote to Raffensperger in September asking him to decertify the election results, which is impossible, and with an eye on the 2022 elections is trying to oust Raffensperger, as well as the state’s governor, Brian Kemp, and other top Republicans who defied his demands to block Biden’s win. Former justice department officials and voting rights advocates say Trump’s conspiratorial attacks on Georgia’s election results, and the threats to public officials, need to be investigated diligently, and prosecuted if warranted by law enforcement, to protect election integrity and public officials. Experts add that Trump’s alarming refusal to accept the Georgia election outcome and seek revenge on Republican officials who ignored his baseless fraud charges may affect a few pivotal 2022 races. His efforts may also encourage extremism and restrictions on minority and other voting rights similar to ones the Georgia legislature enacted this year. Veteran DoJ officials and prosecutors say the criminal inquiry launched by the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, into Trump’s call to Raffensperger and other efforts Trump made to overturn the Georgia results, seems well grounded, with ample public evidence. But they said it will probably take some time before Willis decides whether to bring charges. Willis has said prosecutors are scrutinizing “potential violations of Georgia law prohibiting the solicitation of election fraud, the making of false statements to state and local governmental bodies, conspiracy, racketeering, violation of oath of office and any involvement in violence or threats related to the election’s administration”. The Georgia investigation’s merits were bolstered in late September by the release of a well-documented 107-page study from the Brookings Institution detailing Trump’s high-pressure drive to block Biden’s win in the state. The report concluded that Trump faced “substantial risk of possible state charges predicated on multiple crimes”. Boasting extensive documentation from the public record, the report notes that Trump’s broad effort to nullify the outcome in Georgia included personal contacts with the governor, the state attorney general and the secretary of state’s chief investigator. “Trump engaged in a pattern of repeated personal communications aimed at altering the vote count and making himself the winner in Georgia,” Donald Ayer, one of several authors of the Brookings report and a former deputy attorney general in the George HW Bush administration, said in an interview. “He did so in the absence of any even arguable evidence of voting or counting irregularities. Unless there are other presently unknown facts that would explain it, this conduct appears to satisfy the requirements of a number of Georgia criminal statutes.” To further the Georgia inquiry, Willis reportedly has in recent weeks turned to the House select committee looking into the 6 January attack on the Capitol to share documents and information that could assist her work. Willis’s outreach to the congressional committee doesn’t surprise some expert observers. “Her resources to address local crime are already taxed and any investigative steps taken on Capitol Hill means her likely marathon of a case against the former president may be a little closer to the finish line,” Michael J Moore, a former Georgia prosecutor and Democrat, said in an interview. The district attorney’s progress was underscored by Raffensperger telling the Daily Beast in August that Fulton county investigators had “asked us for documents, they’ve talked to some of our folks, and we’ll cooperate fully”. According to the news outlet, at least four people in Raffensperger’s office have been interviewed, including attorney Ryan Germany and the chief operating officer, Gabriel Sterling. On another legal front, the FBI has begun interviews in recent weeks with several Georgia election officials about death threats and other dangerous warnings they received in the months after the election from Trump backers suggesting falsely that Georgia officials were involved in election rigging. For instance, Richard Barron, who heads the Fulton county board of elections, told the Guardian he was interviewed by two FBI agents in early September and informed them about two death threats he received, including one in the summer “full of white supremacist language” which warned he would be “served lead”. “I hope the FBI makes some arrests,” Barron added. “People need to be held accountable for making threats against public officials.” Barron noted that threats against him and his majority Black staff rocketed after the election, when Democrats also won two Senate seats in the historically red-leaning state. Threats against Barron escalated further after Trump singled him out by name at a rally, he said. Former justice department prosecutors say that the taskforce looking into these threats has to be aggressive. “Absent rigorous law enforcement, responsible citizens will shy away from seeking these types of important public jobs, especially if they feel their families will be under threat,” said Paul Pelletier, a former acting chief of the fraud section at DoJ. But even with these inquiries heating up, Trump has continued to spread his false claims about the election results, as he did at a campaign-style rally in Perry, Georgia, on 25 September, where a few of his favored Georgia candidates spoke –including Representative Jody Hice, who is hoping to defeat Raffensperger in a primary contest. Trump’s drive to retaliate against Republican politicians who defied his efforts to overturn Biden’s Georgia win has dismayed some veteran party operatives who see them as counterproductive. “I think the Trump presence in Georgia has not been good for the GOP’s politics the last two years,” said Republican lobbyist Ed Rogers, who hails from Alabama. “Politics is about addition, and vengeance is not consistent with addition.”
New Manhattan grand jury weighing charges tied to Trump Organization https://www.reuters.com/world/us/ma...organization-case-washington-post-2021-11-04/ The Manhattan district attorney has convened a new grand jury to weigh potential further charges in a case involving former President Donald Trump's Trump Organization, a person familiar with the matter said on Thursday. The second grand jury was expected to examine how the company valued its assets, the Washington Post reported, citing a person familiar with the matter. The criminal case stems from a probe by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance in collaboration with New York State Attorney General Letitia James. James has been examining whether the company inflated the values of some properties to obtain better loans, while indicating lower values for tax purposes. An indictment unsealed in July charged the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, with committed tax fraud arising from a probe into Trump's business and its practices. That indictment said the company provided perks and benefits such as rent-free apartments and leased cars to Weisselberg and other officials without proper reporting on tax returns. Both Weisselberg and the company pleaded not guilty. A Republican, Trump himself has not been charged and calls the charges politically motivated. The new grand jury was seated after the first grand jury's term expired, said the person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. A spokesman for the Manhattan District Attorney's office declined to comment. A lawyer for the Trump Organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday. Mary Mulligan, a lawyer for Weisselberg, declined to comment. Trump's company operates hotels, golf courses, and resorts around the world. Before entering the White House in January 2017, Trump put the organization into a trust overseen by his adult sons Donald Jr. and Eric, as well as Weisselberg. The legal woes could complicate the company's relationships with banks, and could pose a challenge to Trump's political future as he considers running for another term in 2024. EYES ON 2024 Vance, a Democrat, will step down at the end of the year. James, also a Democrat, has said she will run for governor of New York in 2022. While it was not immediately clear which properties the second grand jury was focusing on, James had been examining how the Trump organization assessed the value of Seven Springs, a 212-acre estate in New York City's northern suburbs, and in particular a 2015 agreement not to develop a portion of the property. The attorney general's office said in a court filing that an appraiser hired by Trump before the agreement set the property's value at $56.6 million and the easement's value at $21.1 million - the amount Trump claimed as an income tax deduction.
Trump's longtime accountant and banker have reportedly met with New York prosecutors https://theweek.com/donald-trump/10...-and-banker-have-reportedly-met-with-new-york A longtime outside accountant for the Trump Organization testified recently before a New York grand jury investigating former President Donald Trump's financial practices, and Trump's former Deutsche Bank banker, Rosemary Vrablic, has been interviewed by prosecutors in Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.'s office, The Washington Post and The New York Times report, citing people familiar with Vance's Trump investigation. Donald Bender, a Mazars USA accountant who has handled Trump's finances for decades, was automatically granted immunity from prosecution by appearing before Vance's grand jury, the Post reports. "The appearances by Bender and Vrablic suggest prosecutors are seeking information about Trump's finances from a small circle of outside partners who handled details of Trump's taxes and real estate deals. Bender and Vrablic were never Trump's employees, but they knew more about his company's inner workings than many employees did." Vance and New York Attorney General Leticia James (D) are running parallel investigations of Trump's finances. The James inquiry is civil, meaning it could end in a lawsuit, and has already included depositions of former Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, Eric Trump, and other Trump Organization employees. James also intends to depose Trump himself in January. Vance's investigation, aided by James, is criminal, and has already charged Weisselberg with felony tax fraud. Vance is leaving office in January, to be replaced by Alvin Bragg (D). Both investigations are looking into whether Trump or his organization committed fraud by intentionally overvaluing assets and excluding liabilities to get bank loans and publicly inflate Trump's wealth while claiming a fraction of that value to tax authorities. "If Vance or Bragg ever seeks to file charges against Trump himself, the burden of proof will be high," the Post notes. "They would need to do more than simply prove the Trump Organization's numbers were wrong." Trump's legal team will likely point to disclaimers on the "statements of personal financial condition" Bender has prepared for Trump noting that Mazars has "not audited or reviewed" the information provided by Trump and is "aware of departures from accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America," the Times notes. Armed with those caveats, "Trump's lawyers would most likely argue that no one, let alone sophisticated lenders, should have taken his valuations at face value."
Have we figured out yet why Cyrus Vance had a sudden urge to go into court and ask the court to reduce the sexual offender classification level of Epstein? The judge was flabberghasted/sp and threw it out. Just sayin. I raise this issue every six months or so year after year but instead of seeing articles about Vance investigating someone else, I am still waiting for some real reporting on him. “I have to tell you, I’m a little overwhelmed because I have never seen a prosecutor’s office do anything like this,” the judge told Gaffney, according to reports by The New York Times. https://www.foxnews.com/us/epstein-plea-deal-casts-light-on-manhattan-da-cyrus-vances-role