The Long Wait for Justice Upon trump

I wrote earlier this month that my impatience over the handling of donald trump's legal woes - especially into the matter of him stealing hundreds if not thousands of classified documents when he left the White House in 2021 - would hopefully get satisfaction once the Midterms were over and his fate wouldn't affect the decision-making of American voters.

Well, damn the Man. It's pretty much the end of November. We're all still waiting for that hammer to drop.

Even as every day after the votes have been counted, there is more movement towards making trump accountable for all the crimes he's committed in violation of our voting rights and in violation of our national security.

Just this Tuesday before Turkey Day, trump faced a number of legal defeats that all signal his time running out (via Robert Katzberg at Slate):

On Tuesday, a three-judge panel from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral argument on the federal government’s contention that Judge Aileen Cannon overstepped her authority in limiting the Justice Department’s access to and use of the documents seized earlier this year at Donald Trump’s home in Florida, Mar-a-Lago. Despite the technical nature of the hearing’s dialogue—one that covered, among other things, the nature of interlocutory appeals, the scope of Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, and the limits of equitable jurisdiction—it appears that the government’s position will, at least in part, win the day. Throughout the session, counsel for the former president was unable to satisfactorily respond to skeptical questions from all three panel members. Ignoring the wisdom that one can never predict what a court will do based upon oral argument, it seems that the panel will either rule that Judge Cannon had no jurisdiction to rule on the investigation in the first place, and will vacate all of her prior rulings, or it will severely curtail the review process that she created. In sum, the government had a good day...

If the 11th Circuit does what now seems likely, once the newly appointed special counsel gets up to speed, an indictment of the former president for unlawful possession of the materials found at Mar-a-Lago should quickly follow. The case is both a prosecutorial “slam dunk” and the most effective way to begin prosecuting all matters related to the Jan. 6 riot and the attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

As has been noted by a number of legal observers, the Mar-a-Lago prosecution is much like a simple drug possession case. Donald Trump was in possession of something proscribed by law: not a controlled substance like heroin, but documents that were legally required to remain with the government. The materials in question did not even have to have been classified for their removal to have broken federal law...

Given that there's been already 100 documents deemed classified that shouldn't have been in trump's possession, and trump is facing more than just the Presidential Records Act he violated. Back to Katzberg:

And speaking of the defense, as someone who prosecuted and defended federal white-collar criminal cases for more than four decades, there is none. The ongoing absurdities the former president and his supporters have put forth—whether his undocumented, magical declassification of the top-secret materials; the alleged planting of the documents at his home by the FBI; or any of the other risible claims made—may have provided helpful fodder in the right-wing media, but none of it will help the former president in a court of law.

Everything trump's argued about in social media can't stand in a courtroom under oath. trump nor his lawyers can't prove planted evidence, especially when he's been complaining that the documents in his possession are his to begin with. Gaslighting the media is easy: Gaslighting a judge leads to perjury.

The only rational way trump can get out of his blatant violation of the Presidential Records Act is to argue the law itself is Unconstitutional. trump's only defense is that Executive Privilege extends even to former Presidents, but to do so would grant ex-Presidents powers that would conflict with the authority of the current Chief of State. Would this Far Right Supreme Court even go THAT far to protect trump?

For the Justice Department to dig this long - and fight this hard against trump's delaying tactics via judge-shopping for Cannon's help - it would be folly to not follow through on this case. That trump is at least facing a courtroom for his theft of these documents - at the earliest by 2023, to avoid his presumed Presidential run for 2024 - has to be a settled thing. It's now a question of when (it just better be SOON dammit).

For all that happened this past Tuesday, the Reuters newswire documented more:

The conservative-leaning U.S. Supreme Court cleared the release of Trump's tax returns to the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee...

The committee in its request invoked a federal law that empowers its chairman to request any person's tax returns from the tax-collecting Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Trump's lawyers have said the committee's real aim is to publicly expose his tax returns and unearth politically damaging information about Trump...

Although Reuters didn't go into the reason(s) why the Ways and Means were looking at trump's taxes, if I recall from other sources it was because the Committee was digging into trump's many violations of the Emoluments Clause. trump had been using his properties to entice and squeeze as much money out of the government (forcing the Secret Service to reside at his hotels at double-billing!) and foreign lobbyists since Day One. It had been this long going after trump on this open grift - delayed either by Republican control of Congress or trump's control of the Justice Department - that only now have the courts cleared this matter.

Problem is, the current Democratic control of Ways and Means is going to end in a month: Republicans won a narrow victory to control the House, and there is no way the MAGA wingnuts running the GOP caucus is going to expose their God-Emperor trump to public scrutiny. If there's anything the current committee can use the tax returns info they now have, they better make it quick before Christmas.

If there's anything else that should get resolved before Christmas, well the New York criminal trial into the Trump Organization got a lot of testimony during the first half of the month, leading up to the prosecution resting their case with the defense resuming matters after Turkey Day (via the Guardian and the AP newswire):

Prosecutors in the Trump Organization’s criminal tax fraud trial rested their case on Monday earlier than expected, pinning hopes for convicting Donald Trump’s company largely on the word of two top executives who cut deals before testifying that they schemed to avoid taxes on company-paid perks.

Allen Weisselberg, the company’s longtime finance chief, and Jeffrey McConney, a senior vice-president and controller, testified for the bulk of the prosecution’s eight-day case, bringing the drama of their own admitted wrongdoing to a trial heavy on numbers, spreadsheets, tax returns and payroll records...

The Trump Organization’s lawyers opened their defense by calling to the witness stand the accountant who handled tax returns and other financial matters for Trump, the Trump Organization and hundreds of Trump entities since the 1980s.

Donald Bender, a partner at Mazars USA LLP, said McConney would call him “numerous times” a week about various tax issues and that he got emails from Weisselberg so often, he even made time to respond while away in the mountains or vacationing in Paris.

Bender said he interacted far less frequently with Trump, his biggest client, attending his 2005 wedding, but otherwise talking to him maybe a couple times a year.

Once Trump became president in 2017, Bender said he would visit him twice a year at the White House so he could sign his tax extensions and returns but those trips ended when the Covid-19 pandemic began.

Trump blamed Bender and Mazars for the company’s troubles, writing on his Truth Social platform last week: “The highly paid accounting firm should have routinely picked these things up – we relied on them. VERY UNFAIR!”

trump's defense is obviously an attempt to dodge accountability for himself, but considering trump himself was the company CEO - had sold himself for years as a great decision-maker and leader - it's kind of hard to tell a jury and the world that he was kept out of the loop for major financial decisions that kept his businesses afloat. Harder still to admit his own business "savvy" didn't clue trump into the many tax dodges happening under his authority.

While trump himself won't face criminal liability here - by a quirk in the law, it's his corporation that's on trial - if the New York legal system can prove guilt here and issue judgment on Trump Organization to where trump can't use it to manage his ongoing cons, this would be a huge victory for holding the corrupt in high office accountable for their sins.

All of this going on while trump jumps into the 2024 Presidential campaign two years early in an obvious attempt to use his status as a "candidate" to avoid any criminal prosecution heading his way. In spite of Attorney General Garland hiring a Special Prosecutor to take over not only the Mar-A-Lago investigation but a multitude of other trump-related investigations as a response.

All we can hope for, all we've been able to hope for since 2015, is the long arc of justice to find trump guilty of the crimes he's openly committed for decades. If justice can be done by the time we're gathered at the Christmas trees to open the presents, please and thank you.

Here's hoping for a festive Saturnalian season.

How So Serious

So, as to the details of the big news event: The grand jury investigating the trump Organization's "questionable business practices" officially charged the Chief Financial Officer Allan Weisselberg and the Organization itself (apparently you CAN charge a corporate entity) on 15 counts covering tax fraud, grand larceny, filing false instruments, and improperly loading rolls of toilet paper the wrong direction. Here's the explainer via Andrew Prokop from Vox:

The charges allege that Weisselberg and the Trump Organization did not properly pay taxes related to $1.7 million worth of “fringe benefits” Weisselberg received as part of his salary — most notably apartment and car leases for Weisselberg and private school tuition for his grandchildren. The specific charges also include conspiracy and grand larceny, but those too are related to these fringe benefits. Both Weisselberg and the company pleaded not guilty.

But reports in recent months have made clear that Vance’s investigation is focused on more than just corporate perks. He has also been probing matters close to the heart of the Trump Organization’s business practices, examining whether the company overvalued certain properties to score favorable loan terms while undervaluing them to pay less in property taxes. He even obtained Trump’s tax returns after a battle that went to the Supreme Court...

It's a question of understanding just how trump and his CFO were trying to cheat the tax system:

As CFO of the Trump Organization, Weisselberg received an official salary. But he also received various lucrative perks on top of that — “fringe benefits.” These included:

An apartment lease: Trump’s company paid the lease and utility bills for an apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side that prosecutors say has been Weisselberg’s primary residence since 2005.

Car leases: Trump’s company paid the leases on two Mercedes-Benz cars used by Weisselberg and his wife.

Private school tuition: From 2012 to 2017, either Trump or a Trump trust paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition to a New York City private school for two of Weisselberg’s grandchildren.

Though fringe benefits such as these aren’t technically part of an employee’s salary, they have monetary value and as a result should be considered taxable income paid by the employer. (Certain types of fringe benefits, like employer-provided health insurance, are excluded from taxation, but most aren’t.)

Prosecutors allege that both the Trump Organization and Weisselberg participated in a scheme to avoid paying taxes on these perks. They argue that the Trump Organization should have paid payroll taxes, and that Weisselberg — whom they allege also hid his New York City residency — evaded more than $500,000 in federal taxes, more than $100,000 in state taxes, and more than $200,000 in New York City taxes...

I recall seeing a Twitter post questioning "Why even play around with these schemes when trump could have simply paid Weisselberg better or at least properly report these benefits for tax purposes?" A good answer to that may be due to what trump (and Weisselberg and others) were trying to avoid: Accountability for their debts.

Another Twitter thread, this one from Kurt Eichenwald, notices in the details how trump's financial empire is low on real cash, riddled with debt, and unable to function like a normal company:

As someone who has written for decades about corporate crime, I was reading the Trump O/Weisselberg indictment going, "Yah, ok..hmm..yah..ok..Wait..HOLY SHIT!" The Trump Org is in deep, deep trouble. And not because of the criminal charges. Because of its bank loan covenants.../1

— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) July 1, 2021

...this means it cannot readily convert its assets into cash as needed. Worse, because of the incredible incompetence and business idiocy of Trump, cash on hand (and access rapid loans through what is known as the commercial paper market) is small. So, the company survives.../3

— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) July 1, 2021

...to figure out how he was going to generate enough cash to pay interest on bonds. He couldn't. With his dad, he tried laundering money through Trump Castle to get past a requirement with his bank loans brought on by his junk debt, but got caught. Everything crashed down.../5

— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) July 1, 2021

...all bank loans with a business come with "lending covenants." These are basically a series of requirements, some of which include "you'll behave" in minor character. But *the most important part* of any loan covenant is the "books and records" portion. It is included in.../9

— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) July 1, 2021

...it's all or nothing, like pregnancy: You either are or you arent. The books and records either are truthful or they aren't. Which brings us to count 12, which I think you can now understand the significance of: pic.twitter.com/xSJkwvimmR

— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) July 1, 2021

Basically, trump may think he can lie and bluff and cheat and call it good business, but the banks he tries to deal with can't. They have to answer to the government where they operate, and to that body of laws regulating banking practices, and they need to cross every T and dot every I otherwise regulators can fine the shit out of them and even shut them down. If they can't trust the client they're dealing with, they'll stop dealing with him.

And they should have been avoiding trump already. By the 1990s his bad habits of borrowing like mad and bankrupting like mad scared away most American-based banks. trump was able to find overseas buyers for his bull, Deutsche Bank in particular. But now, if Eichenwald is right, every one of those banks ought to be freaking out and making phone calls:

...they turn over every relevant book and record pertaining to these issues. If they refuse...BOOM. Loans pulled. If they do and the banks don't like what they see...BOOM. Loans pulled. If the loans come due (which 100s of millions do next year) no way they get refinanced..../13

— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) July 1, 2021

I've mentioned it before: the gambit for the Presidency was trump's last big con. He had always been a "clown living on credit" posing as a billionaire to his admirers when he had no true value to his name. He had nothing else waiting for him past that. He had been running from scheme to scheme, trying to find something that would make him a real billionaire instead of the puffed-up fraud his debts made him seem. That was it for him, he had nowhere else to go. It was one of the biggest reasons why he was so desperate to steal the legal election away from Biden: delaying the inevitable call from his creditors that would bankrupt him forever.

The criminal charges that still await trump on this - as soon as Weisselberg gets a good plea deal, he'll flip, and the only thing Weisselberg has of value is whatever dirt he has on trump - are still pending, but it's the hit to his gaslighting ego about wealth and success that will be an even bigger blow. Once the bills come due, he won't even be able to lie to himself anymore.

Right now, the way these numbers are looking, the amount of debt trump is drowning in, *I* might have more worth than donald fucking trump.

Sucks to be you, donnie.

This Week: Threatening Us With a Good Time (w/ Updates)

Last Friday, this news dropped (via Tom Winter, Adam Reiss and Dareh Gregorian at NBC News):

The Trump Organization is expected to be hit with criminal charges as soon as next week by Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance’s office in a case that Trump attorneys say is tied to tax-related conduct, multiple people familiar with the matter tell NBC News...

Now it's not like they will arrest a corporate entity (although having it shamble aboot like Frankenstein's Monster would be an apt metaphor), but targeting specific individuals in that organization who had a say in the activities leading up to alleged criminal misdeeds.

This also means that despite our nation's fondest hopes, they're not arresting trump himself (although it would be a nice birthday present on the 4th of July). At this stage of Vance's investigations and grand jury deliberations, we're likely talking about the lower rungs of trump's empire. That the DA's office is tipping their hand that it's all tax-related, we're likely looking at the biggest target being the Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg being prepped for the perp walk.

NBC News first reported this year in an interview with Jennifer Weisselberg, Allen Weisselberg’s former daughter-in-law, that the Manhattan DA was probing schemes where Trump employees including the Weisselbergs were able to avoid paying taxes in exchange for benefits such as an apartment...

NBC News confirmed this week that investigators had also been probing Matthew Calamari, the former Trump bodyguard who's now the company's chief operating officer. The Wall Street Journal, which first reported on the focus on Calamari, cited people close to the matter who said Calamari was being investigated over whether he received tax-free fringe benefits from the company.

Vance has been investigating a variety of allegations of financial improprieties against Trump's company. Court documents show that Vance is probing "possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization," which could include falsifying business records, insurance fraud and tax fraud.

The investigation appears to have picked up steam in recent months, after Vance's office won a lengthy battle to get ahold of Trump's personal and corporate tax returns and underlying financial documents in February...

This is more serious and damaging to trump than the Mueller Investigation. Vance and the New York Attorney General's office are digging directly into trump's own financials, and going at one of the few people who's had direct dealings with trump on tax-related matters. Allen Weisselberg is someone Michael Cohen - who was also deep into trump's financial mischief - repeatedly name-dropped during the early unraveling of everything when it got out trump paid off women who had affairs with him to avoid scandal during the 2016 campaigns.

What is happening here is the prosecutors are trying to get Weisselberg to flip on trump: They likely have all the paper trail they need from trump's tax returns to show he was cooking the books on his property values, but they need direct testimony from someone who was there to confirm who made the final calls on the lawbreaking. So far, Weisselberg hasn't flipped: Without any incentive at the moment, he has no reason to.

Putting him in handcuffs and a jail cell tends to be a big incentive to testify. And even then, Weisselberg has to know he's not the real target of all this. All he's waiting for is a sweetheart deal when it gets to be clear he has to play that particular trump (pun intended) card.

This is all fun and games until someone real high in this organization gets fingered. Maybe not trump himself but definitely one or more of his own kids he's been using as underlings in most of his shadier con jobs. Then it REALLY becomes fun and games.

We'll see this week if this merits a popcorn GIF or a goddamned street party GIF. 

Update Wed. 6/30: CNN is breaking that arrests are expected this Thursday July 1, Weisselberg in particular, involving "tax crimes." Mostly to do with perks and bonuses that apparently were not reported as income. Considering that higher-ups in the trump Organization would have had to sign off on at least some of those actions, we should expect at least one family member if not trump himself getting charged later on.

Current Status on New York's Case vs. trump (w/Update)

Just so you know: It looks like trump can no longer delay his fate in New York. Via Ryan Lucas at NPR:

 The U.S. Supreme Court, in a one-sentence unsigned order, declined former President Donald Trump's request to further delay the enforcement of a subpoena from the Manhattan district attorney for Trump's financial records. Monday's order paves the way for a New York grand jury to obtain the records and review them.

The high court's decision marks a major setback for Trump, who for years has fought to shield his finances and business practices from scrutiny. It all but clears the way for District Attorney Cyrus Vance to enforce his subpoena for the former president's financial documents.

Vance issued a grand jury subpoena to Trump's personal accounting firm, Mazars USA, in August 2019 for his tax filings and other financial records. Vance's office says it wants the materials as part of a criminal investigation.

The exact parameters of Vance's investigation are not clear, but from court filings it appears that his office is investigating possible insurance or financial fraud by the former president or his businesses...

What are the implications here? 

First, that trump and his lawyers are running out of any other delaying tactics he's used to pulling to avoid any level of accountability for his crimes.

Second, that any stunt he DOES try will likely get him hammered by any judges overseeing his case(s) because even the highest Court in the land won't give trump any more room to do so.

Third, that the likelihood of trump getting caught on tax fraud - that he gave one set of numbers to the IRS and New York revenue offices, and his banks and business partners another - is close to 100 percent, but not an absolute given. While trump has been spending far too much effort to hide his tax numbers in a way suggesting prolonged years of committing that tax fraud, there may be a simpler personal reason trump has been hiding them: Those returns - based on what the media had already uncovered - will prove trump is nowhere near the successful billionaire he sells himself and is likely in debt to the tune of billions. "Clown living on credit" is trump's likely epitaph here.

These legal matters still take time: Once the prosecutor's office gets ahold of the papers they have to be thorough with the evidence, and see what matches up to the evidence they already have (likely from Michael Cohen, trump's former bagman). This could take anywhere from a week to a couple of months. 

In the meantime, trump's not going anywhere except further into acts of sedition against the United States. It would be nice, New York DAs, to get this done quick and charge him before things get worse.

Update 2/25: It's official, the tax returns are in the possession of the New York City DA's office. Via Rachel Triesman at NPR:

A spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. confirmed to NPR over email that his office obtained the records on Monday. That same day, the U.S. Supreme Court declined Trump's request to further delay the enforcement of a subpoena, paving the way for a New York grand jury to obtain and review the sought-after financial documents.

"As we have maintained throughout this process, Mazars will comply with all of its legal and professional obligations," Trump's personal accounting firm, Mazars USA, told NPR in a statement.

I got out of the habit of eating popcorn when I had braces in the eighth grade, but for this I'm making an exception.

Digging Into trump's Tax Dirt

There's a debate tonight but I don't give a rat's ass because unless trump goes batshit crazy and vomits on everybody this will not change a lot of voters' minds.

In the meanwhile, following up on trump's tax troubles, I spotted a Tweet from John Rogers about reading a tax expert's - Daniel Shaviro a professor on tax law out of NYU - evaluation of the Times' revelations to get a better idea how much trouble trump is in:

2) Trump appears to be an absolutely terrible businessman. This is a man who netted $606 million over nineteen years (from 2000 to 2018) through The Apprentice, licensing and endorsements, and investments and businesses run by others, and yet has created enormous financial peril for himself by buying prestige business properties for high prices, and then pouring cash into them without thereby generating positive net returns. Even with the cash infusions, his personally run businesses have continued to lose a great deal of money (even leaving aside depreciation deductions that might or might not be accompanied by actual declines in economic value). One therefore suspects that he is simply funding the negative cash flow, not creating new value that might pay off in the future...

3) As a matter of net worth, Trump appears not to be rich (despite his having inherited a large fortune). The impending financial liabilities, and selling off of assets (plus taking out of loans) to keep the cash flowing is only one reason for concluding that, as a matter of net worth (as distinct, from say, lifestyle), Trump does not appear to be rich. Consider that, from 2000 to 2018, his net profit from assets – his own businesses, plus investments in businesses run by others – is only $4.2 million (the excess of his investment gains over his business losses).

This is about $220,000 per year. Just as a very general ballpark comparison, if you were earning $220,000 per year from assets that offered, say, a regular 4 percent annual return, that would imply that you were worth only $5.5 million...

While 5.5 million isn't something to sneeze at for middle-class folk, trump has been selling himself as a BILLIONAIRE, of which 5.5 million is metaphorically pocket change (think about the $2000 you got in your checking account compared to the three quarters, two dimes, and five nickels in your change dish).

What trump is doing, from what I can tell, is create the illusion of wealth in order to convince others of it: Spending lavishly and indulgently on luxury items as though that's all there is to it. Thing is, that kind of wasteful spending helps explain why trump also appears to be massively in debt. Back to Shaviro:

4) There is nothing wrong in principle with using true economic losses to offset the tax that would otherwise be due on gains – but it also isn’t clever tax planning. The late, great Martin Ginsburg – a famous tax lawyer and the spouse of the recently deceased Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg – once jokingly described what he called the “Herman tax shelter.” The idea was that, if you need, say, a $1 million tax deduction, your fictional accountant Herman could say: “Give me $1 million, I’ll steal it from you and go to a country where you can’t reach me, and voila, you have a $1 million theft loss.”

The gist is: Planning to get a deduction is useless if the plan involves you losing too much money in the first place. If that's all that trump is doing here with reporting losses to the IRS every year, it would still be reckless behavior because it's all focused on the now (short-term) and doesn't allow to invest or plan long-term, which cuts into profits down the road. In short: trump's an idiot.

We therefore should distinguish between (a) Trump’s losing so much money over the years – be it from bad luck, bad judgment, or incompetence – and (b) his also taking a number of tax positions that, as I discuss next, appear to be questionable or even fraudulent. The real losses rightfully offset tax on the gains, insofar as using them in the way he did was legally permissible, and the adverse inferences to be drawn from them lie outside the tax system (although again, as per the fallacy in the “Herman tax shelter,” they do not reflect clever tax planning).

The fifth point on Shaviro's list answers a long-standing argument about trump's refusal to go public with his tax returns. A lot of his critics believed his excuse of getting "audited" by the IRS was asinine, but it turns out the IRS *is* investigating him for a questionable refund filing from 2007-09. So Shaviro looks at that and I want to quote him in full:

5) The ongoing IRS audit dispute regarding a $72.5 million loss deduction looks very bad for Trump. The Times article suggests that the key issue, for most or all of this claimed loss, is a “worthless stock deduction” from abandoning his interest in the disastrous Atlantic City casino venture. Many years ago, when I was in tax practice, I actually worked on this precise legal issue (for a corporate client of my law firm), so I am quite familiar with it. When you own equity (such as Trump’s partnership interests in the Atlantic City activity) that has lost enormous value, typically the equity constitutes a “capital asset.” If you sell it for an enormous loss, that is only a capital loss, and deduction of the loss is limited to the sum of (a) net capital gains for the year, and (b) $3,000. Disallowed losses are carried forward, but at $3,000 per year they may be worth very little, unless your income in future years includes large capital gains. But if the investment is utterly worthless and you abandon it for zero consideration, it becomes an “ordinary” loss (i.e., one that is not subject to the limits on deducting capital losses).

Trump apparently did this with his Atlantic City partnership interests, and claimed an ordinary loss that seems to have made up much or all of the $72.5 million. But he received back a 5 percent interest in the stock of the new entity. As the Times article rightly notes, this could establish that the entire abandonment loss claim was legally invalid. He would merely have sold his once-valuable asset for a large capital loss, the use of which would be sharply restricted as described above. The Times notes that losing on this issue – as it appears he should, if the stated facts are accurate and relevantly complete – would cause him to owe the IRS about $100 million, given interest on the prior refund. This leaves aside the possibility of civil or criminal tax penalties for claiming an abandonment loss despite receiving consideration back.

We're now getting into the criminal stuff in trump's tax returns, and also why trump is so desperate to cheat his way into a second term to avoid prosecution. Rather than take the capital loss which was limited, trump filed for the ordinary loss to get unlimited return... even though the stocks he received from the transaction did not make the loss worthless. This is tax fraud, and unless his lawyers beat the IRS into submission (or he bullies them directly, which would be an abuse of office) trump is going to pay one way or another.

It gets more serious from here:

6) The consulting fees that Trump’s various foreign businesses paid to Ivanka Trump and others look potentially fraudulent. The Times article cites 20 percent consulting fees that foreign Trump businesses regularly deducted by reason of paying them to unnamed consultants. Some of these fees pertained to activities in which Trump’s role as an investor was ostensibly entirely passive, meaning that he wasn’t engaged in making any of the business decisions. Consulting fees also appear to have been paid to family members such as Ivanka Trump. She got consulting fees with respect to businesses for which she simultaneously worked as an executive, and thus as an employee.

Based on what the article says, several different types of fraud may have been involved here. Fees paid to family members who did not provide services in return would be improper deductions. Fees paid to “consultants” who were employees might be properly deductible by the business – as salary – but would potentially trigger 3.8 percent payroll tax liability by the recipient under the so-called Medicare payroll tax. Fees that were actually gifts to family members were not properly deductible, and also may have generated gift tax liability on Trump’s part that the mislabeling helped to conceal.

From what I can tell, the trump family was double-dipping, getting paid twice for the same job (with the second "job" a no-show consulting excuse). Violations of payroll tax and Medicare tax codes. This is where it's not just trump on the line, it's the whole fcking family.

7) Other improper deductions that may have been claimed fraudulently. The Times article notes several different types of improper deductions for business expenses that appear to have been personal, and hence not allowable under the federal income tax...

In short: This is where the jokes about $70,000 haircuts come in. Seriously though:

Similarly, the Times article raises serious questions about deductions for a residential property, described by Eric Trump as the family “compound,” on the ground that it was an investment property being held for profit. The very year after the investment designation was made, Trump claimed a deduction for a charitable easement that precluded development of much of the property. Happening just a year later (and possibly foreseen), this would only add to the difficulty of establishing the requisite profit motive.

A further instance of potential fraud relates to deducting legal fees that may have related to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, rather than to his business activities. This may even include the hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, if it was improperly amalgamated with actual legal fees...

And this is where the state attorney's investigations into trump kick in. Where the IRS is one level of trouble, the state of New York is a level trump can't bully or hinder (thank you, Separation of Powers between State and Federal). This has been where the tax returns fight had been at its harshest, with trump fighting tooth and nail to prevent the local DA from getting into his financials. Well, it looks like that's a little too late...

Much like the debate happening about... oh RIGHT NOW... these revelations won't change a single mind among the 40 percent that makes up trump's rabid fanbase.

But these revelations expose just how weak trump's position truly is: facing likely criminal charges and civil lawsuits (he can delay the former but facing too many of the latter), trump is relying far too much on foreign creditors and foreign dirty money to survive even day-to-day.

This unfortunately makes him dangerous in an election cycle: trump has every reason to cheat to stay one step ahead of the law he's supposed to uphold.

This thankfully also makes it easier for the rest of us to understand what's at stake and vote the thieving con artist out of office.

We need to do this, America. We cannot survive with a tax fraud and financial disaster running the White House.

Only Two Things Certain with trump: Schadenfreude and Taxes

Note: I just realized a day later that I wrote an earlier report about trump's tax-dodging back in 2016(!!!) that used a similar title to this blog article I wrote yesterday. Dammit. I've been screaming for so long about trump being a tax cheat and con artist that I'm starting to repeat myself!

Anyway, on to the article...

So the big bombshell on Sunday was Buffalo winning its third straight game this NFL season was the New York Times reporting on what they had on donald trump's tax returns. Apparently, they have received verifiable copies of the returns that trump had been keeping out of sight for the last 5 years, and they gave their first - promising more to follow - report on what they found. The rest of what they have is behind a firewall, so I'll go to Betty Cracker at Balloon Juice to help with the schadenfreude:

Also, he wrote off $70K in taxes for hair styling. He wrote off more than $700K in “consulting fees” that suspiciously matched an amount collected by a Ivanka-owned consulting company. I am not a lawyer, but that sounds legally dubious. It may be perfectly legal since our tax code seems designed to allow rich people to perpetuate outrageous scams.

Anyhoo, I’ve long since stopped waiting for any revelation about Trump, no matter how repulsive or ridiculous or outrageous, to make the bottom fall out of his base of support. If 200K-plus dead Americans on his watch — with recorded evidence that he lied to us about the danger — won’t budge the needle, nothing will. Somewhere around 40% of our fellow citizens are dumb and/or malevolent chumps, and they’ll never admit they’ve been conned. Still, being exposed as a fraud has got to be a personal hell for a narcissist like Trump.

Let's go to Tom Sullivan at Hullabaloo for some thoughts:

The Times has obtained what Trump has long sought to keep from investigators: “tax-return data extending over more than two decades for Mr. Trump and the hundreds of companies that make up his business organization.”

Trump is deeply in debt. If he loses his dispute with the Internal Revenue Service over the validity of a $72.9 million tax refund, he could owe the government more than $100 million after including interest. He has hundreds of millions in loans coming due in the next few years with no way to repay them. Some he personally guaranteed.

Sunday’s lengthy report is just the overview. There is nothing more on Trump’s financial dealings with Russian oligarchs, but enough to whet the appetite for more. Not to worry. The Times reassures that “additional articles will be published in the coming weeks...” 

(Editor's Note: As I post this blog article, the Times released Part II of their reporting, it seems to involve how NBC's "The Apprentice" kept trump afloat...)

Digby's coverage at Hullabaloo goes into better detail, and I would encourage you to hop over there and read each of the 13 points she makes about how this is a really big fcking deal that trump is in debt up to his bad $70,000.00 haircuts.

To be honest, these revelations aren't shocking to those of us - myself included - who knew for a long time that trump was never honest about his wealth and showed far too many signs of living off massive loans he can't pay off.

What this means to the 2020 election cycle depends entirely on those voters who were still undecided - not that many - and on Republican voters who can't pretend trump is a financial genius anymore - also not that many - and on Democratic voters who have to step up and get the damn vote out - this needs to be as many Dems as possible - to throw this crooked bankrupted fraud out of OUR house.

This almost underscores just how dangerous trump is going to get as he openly plots to subvert the election this November. This is it for him, this performance he has ripping off the federal government from INSIDE the government. There are no other con jobs waiting for him after this. He has no other escape plan from this con he's got going, and once he's outside of the Oval Office he has nowhere to run and hide. This is why he's threatening to pull every authoritarian trick in the books to cheat and stay in office, this is why he's always talking about stealing a third term when the Constitution clearly says Hell No.

There's a couple other things to point out - that our tax code unfairly skews in favor of the so-called wealthy (as well as the real wealthy), and that our legal system unfairly refuses to treat financial fraud as serious as it ought to - but I will leave those rants for another day.

GET THE DAMN VOTE OUT AGAINST THIS BANKRUPT FRAUD, AMERICA.

trump is literally in debt to other people, and those chit-holders are bound to call in their IOUs that will end up hurting us.

The Proof the Nation Needs

To claim trump is the dirtiest, most crooked person to ever occupy the White House is easy to say, but difficult to prove. I mean, we can see trump violate the Emoluments Clause every single freaking day, but to prove it in the courts you need evidence, a paper trail, cold hard facts of fraud counted penny by penny.

Which is why getting at the proof - above all, those tax returns that trump refuses to go public with like every other President Loser of the Popular Vote has done - is so key towards exposing the crook for what he is.

Via Julia Arciga at the Daily Beast:

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office subpoenaed eight years of President Trump’s personal and corporate tax returns late last month, a person familiar with the investigation told The Daily Beast. Prosecutors are seeking Trump’s personal tax documents and those of the Trump Organization from accounting firm Mazars USA, including federal and state returns dating back to 2011. A spokesman for Manhattan D.A. Cyrus Vance Jr. declined to confirm or comment on the subpoena, which was first reported by The New York Times.

The subpoena was issued after prosecutors opened a criminal probe into the role Trump and the company played in the hush-money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels, who says she had an affair with Trump. Michael Cohen—Trump’s former personal attorney—made the $130,000 payment to Daniels, and was subsequently reimbursed by the president and the Trump Organization. This also comes after Mazars USA was subpoenaed by Congress to hand over Trump’s financial records.

Granted, trump's lawyers are likely doing everything they can to throw this entire thing into delays and holds until the 2020 general election is over.

But this is all playing out at the state level, where the timetables run differently (hopefully faster than a few months) and also at a level that trump's cronies in the Justice Department and the Senate can't meddle or obstruct.

When it comes to trump, the most obvious thing you can investigate him for is his fraud: from bad business deals (how many bankrupt casinos?) to crooked con games (hi, Trump University!), if you want to find out trump's criminal habits you follow the money. The tax returns - something you're NOT supposed to lie about lest the IRS comes calling, even Al Capone found that out to his dread - are where you're going to find out where trump's money been coming from, and where it's been going to.

There may well be a simple psychological reason trump refuses to divulge his tax numbers: His ego. trump has spent decades claiming he's one of the richest men on the planet worth billions, but he never really goes out of his way to prove that. The tax returns would prove his wealth... but most likely showing him worth mere millions instead, exposing him to a public from which he desperately seeks adoration. (It could be even worse. The state tax returns from the 1990s suggests trump is in the red and living off of loans he can't pay off)

But that's just part of it. The darker reason trump is terrified his tax returns go public are the hints and allegations of money laundering for disreputable figures - above all the Russian mob - that those tax returns could validate. The revelations already made through Cohen's plea deal and how he was paying off people illegally suggest the rot touches everything under trump's corporate umbrella.

The federal government may not go after trump while he's sitting in the Oval Office, and there may even be legal restrictions on whether the state of New York can file criminal charges on him as well.

But one more thing to remember about trump's criminal empire: Most of his kids and personal handlers are all tied up in that rot as well. He may be untouchable but they aren't. And a crooked boss can't run his criminal empire without his most trusted people...

Start running, kids.

The Nasty Public Secret of trump's Failures

It's been something I've harped on a long time: how trump's reputation as a savvy businessman was all a lie when you look at his long history of bankruptcies, failed projects, and the honest-to-god killing of an entire sports league.

And now his tax returns from the 1980s and 1990s re-affirmed all of that, pointing out how trump lost more money than any other American taxpayer - even actual billionaires  - on a scale that suggests either sheer incompetence on trump's part... or blatant acts of fraud.

Consider this little tidbit about what trump did to play the Stock Markets (from Matthew Yglesias at Vox.com):

...He would secretly buy shares of stock in a company, publicly suggest he was planning to make a bid to buy the whole company, watch the share price rise in response to the Trump takeover rumors, and then sell his shares at a profit without actually doing anything.

He did this successfully with United Airlines in 1987, which led him to try it again with Hilton Hotels, Gillette, and Federated Department Stores in 1988. This was apparently a “fool me five times, shame on you” situation, however; investors caught on to the fact that Trump was running a scam, and it didn’t work anymore...

And yet from the reports we're getting, people on Wall Street figured out trump was pulling these Pump And Dumps. WHICH ARE AGAINST THE LAW. And yet... nobody charged him with sh-t while the statue of limitations were in effect. Unless the SOB has been doing it recently based on the latest tax returns trump still refuses to release, he can't be touched on the matter. Which sucks.

This is from a specific blog rant I wrote back during the 2016 campaign, about how trump developed this not-so-secret track record of screwing over his own employees and contractors to where someone, ANYONE, should have gone public with his deal-breaking and get his ass thrown in jail for it or something:

It's good that the stories are getting out there now, during a period that our voters can realize that Trump isn't a successful businessman, he's a successful thief. But it bothers me that someone like Trump was allowed to operate like this for over 40 years and got away with it. Shouldn't some requirement of business ethics DEMAND that a crook of Trump's venality be hauled into the spotlight for his sins long ago? Before it got worse?

Which all leads to this sad open secret about the law in the United States:

The law is entirely geared to favor the wealthy.

I mean, that's the whole point of the law when you think about it. Read up on the Code of Hammurabi. One of the earliest forms of codified law in Western civilization, it may have set down punishments for criminal acts but it also spelled out who owned what, the fair rate of exchange for goods and services, and other things people tended to argue over.

Every legal system is a reflection of that, and ultimately focused on one thing: How to do business. Look at your city and county ordinances. A lot of local laws focus on zoning and property rights (who owns what). Your state laws and statutes, there's a lot in there about property rights, theft protections, wages, money, regulations for business (who owns what). The US Code covers that stuff at the federal level.

When the Founders created the federal system under the Constitution, they did so because their original model of government under the Articles of Confederation did a lousy job of spelling out who owned what... and they feared the rise of mobs who would take from the rich - the Revolutionary Founders themselves - if they didn't set up a stronger system to enforce who owns what.

As a result, you ever take a good long look our legal system, you'll see there are two different rules for the poor and the rich. A lot of laws are set up to punish the poor - high bails, prison time for most low-income crimes, legal fees that a public defense can never cover - and protect the rich - lawyers on retainer to argue probation, harder standards of proof for financial fraud, etc.

Click on the link to the US Code covering Securities Fraud: it spells out penalties covering "fined under this title, or imprisoned not more than 25 years, or both." Yet in practice the fines tend to be maybe ten thousands or hundred thousands of dollars, but never the amount that the fraudsters committed, meaning a lot of them can pay off fines with their equivalent of pocket change. And jail time? Usually measured by months instead of years. If you compared a guy who stole $10 million from an investment firm who pays a $50,000 fine and spends three months in jail to a guy who stole a flatscreen TV from WalMart who has no money to pay and spends three years in jail, you see all the rewards go to the white-collar crook while the low-income crook suffers more.

You might retort "Well we're arrested fraudsters before," and yes we've seen the likes of Boesky and Madoff and Milken head to court and even some jail time, but those are the painful exceptions to the hundreds pulling lower-scale scams. They were so brazen and reckless that they were easy to catch... and in most of their cases they ripped off fellow rich folk, which is the big no-no within their circles. And even then, it took years before anyone listened to the one investigator warning the financial world about Madoff. Even then, it takes years for white collar crooks to see the inside of a courtroom.

trump should have been one of those fraudsters who crossed those lines. he lied and cheated to a lot of fellow millionaires to pretend to be one of them... and yet he was routinely let off the hook. All because we as a nation do not take financial fraud crimes serious enough.

Let's admit it. Compared to all the sins we already know trump committed. We jailed Martha Stewart for less.

No one had the balls or decency to go after trump. Until it was too late.

A Con Artist In the Red

I wrote this what feels like a lifetime ago:

Okay, I'm asking here: if you were truly worth $10 billion, wouldn't you use some of that money cashed out - in hand - to pay off said debts? I mean, $100 million is less than a percent of $10 billion: you could pay off that debt and still have $9.99 billion to your name. Done and done. One less thing to worry about.

One of Trump's selling points during the Primary campaign was that nobody could "own" him because he was so independently wealthy. But if he's in this much debt to banks - debt he hasn't paid off with a portion of billionaire wealth he's supposed to have - how can he claim that? Those banks surely own him: what would happen if they started calling in that credit he owes...?

...This needs to be an ongoing question at every press gathering, at every time Trump is at the podium: Is Donald Trump even really a billionaire?

And the answer to that, according to a New York Times report by Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig coming out tonight, is NOPE.

Mr. Trump was propelled to the presidency, in part, by a self-spun narrative of business success and of setbacks triumphantly overcome. He has attributed his first run of reversals and bankruptcies to the recession that took hold in 1990. But 10 years of tax information obtained by The New York Times paints a different, and far bleaker, picture of his deal-making abilities and financial condition...

The numbers show that in 1985, Mr. Trump reported losses of $46.1 million from his core businesses — largely casinos, hotels and retail space in apartment buildings. They continued to lose money every year, totaling $1.17 billion in losses for the decade.

In fact, year after year, Mr. Trump appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual American taxpayer, The Times found when it compared his results with detailed information the I.R.S. compiles on an annual sampling of high-income earners. His core business losses in 1990 and 1991 — more than $250 million each year — were more than double those of the nearest taxpayers in the I.R.S. information for those years...

trump lost so much money he actually qualified to not pay any federal taxes most of those years.

While this report doesn't cover trump's most current history - anything from 2006 onward, within the last ten years before the 2016 elections - the report demonstrates a clear and consistent pattern: donald trump was and likely still is a terrible businessman when it comes to actual management of property, casinos, sales, and other operations.

The ONLY thing trump ever seemed to be good at was selling himself - putting his name in BIG UNAVOIDABLE GOLD LETTERS everywhere - with the lie of being successful.

It was that lie - "I know what I am doing. I know how to run things." - that trump kept harping on during his presidential campaigns. For all the media disdain - and for all the warnings that kept coming from people like me, Christ I wrote this three years ago - a lot of the public had the wrongful image of trump as successful CEO. What a goddamn lie that proved to be.

The nation is still going to struggle with the horrors of this trump administration until enough Americans wake up to the reality that trump is a con artist, and that his protestations of being a success is false and grotesque.

It's just another lie from trump, America. For the LOVE OF GOD, stop believing his bullshit.