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| Denys Amaral is the creator of the Trump witch picture. |
(6 minute read)
Got the goods
New York Attorney General Letitia James has filed a civil suit against all the various Trump enterprises.[1] It’s quite the read. If it were a book Trump Republicans would be banning it. The filing is a culmination of a years-long effort. The case is going to go on for years more.
What an undertaking it has been, too. You know there’s a point in the movie “Erin Brockovich” where the lawyer realizes that they need the resources of a bigger firm because of the size of their case. Same thing happened in the Better Call Saul franchise where Jimmy has to hook up with a bigger outfit. I can’t imagine the team that AG James put together to handle this. The finances are a quagmire in a labyrinth hidden in a fog.
It's no witch hunt either.[2] She’s got the goods. In great detail. I see why Trump offered to settle. He, along with his family, are going to spend millions fighting this. Trump may be a Chatty Cathy[3] in public but he’s 5th Amendment pleading mob boss magician in court.[4]
From FindLaw:
“Finally, it's important to note that the protections you have in criminal prosecutions when taking the fifth do not apply in a civil case. A jury is free to make an adverse inference if you plead the fifth in a civil trial. For example, if you are suing another driver after being injured in a car crash, and you refuse to answer whether you had been drinking, the jury is free to assume you refuse to answer because you had, in fact, been drinking prior to getting behind the wheel.”
One of my favorite parts is where Trump lied about the size of his penthouse. It’s approximately 11,000 sq feet in size. It takes up 3 entire floors. Ever the braggart, Trump claimed in legal filings that it was 30,000 sq ft in size and placed an inflated value on top of that. He lied on top of the lie.
It’s just so Trumpian.
Ever Trump.
The case made against Trump and Company provides some insight as to why he ran the government the way he did. It was how he did business. He lied. He lied often. He lied to make money. It worked. At page 74, paragraph 260 in the filing there was an admonishment to not put communications in writing. His tax attorney told people to avoid email and communicate via phone. They wanted to avoid leaving a paper trail as much as possible.
Trump used different schemes, like the Brand Premium scheme, the Fixed Assets scheme and Membership Deposit Scheme, to “adjust” values more to their liking regardless of legality.[5]
One part of the document really jumped out to me. One of Trump’s lawyers was advised the following regarding a scheme that they had used in land donated for tax purposes:[6]
In January 2015, the donation of the easement to the Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy was publicly disclosed. Ms. Dillion advised against the press conference for a host of reasons, including a desire to avoid drawing undue scrutiny to the transaction. On January 14, 2015, she wrote to an in-house lawyer at the Trump Organization: “Remind him that the larger the value and the more he makes of it, then he is telling the world how large a tax deduction he is taking for it. In this case, this is tantamount to the US taxpayers paying Donald Trump to keep his driving range and use it for exactly what he is already using it for - and some could argue that as long as he is operating the golf course, he would continue to keep the driving range - effectively, the US taxpayers are paying him to do what he would already do anyway, and perhaps this isn’t the best use of taxpayer dollars. Bottom line - the more publicity this gets, the more we invite scrutiny. This may cause renewed interest in the issue.”
The larger issue is that when the government is defrauded, or the tax system manipulated it is taxpayers that pick up the cost. Trump isn’t the only billionaire doing this. Corporations do it as well. They create money out of thin air with all these complicated financial tools that have been created over the years for the sole purpose of taking care of the wealthy.
Trump loves to create his own wealth out of the thin air allowed by whim. In 2013 when he was bidding on the Buffalo Bills football team, even though his own financial statement said that he was worth $5.1 billion dollars he claimed that he was worth $8 billion.[7]
He is ever Trump.
Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!
Aaaaannnd the search warrant executed by the FBI at Mar a Lago turned up tax information that evidently hadn’t been turned over when subpoenaed by the New York AG.[8] It also seemed surprising to me when key players were listed in the filing as defendants Ivanka Trump wasn’t mentioned in the paragraph referenced with those committing long term fraudulent conduct were listed.[9] Not a big deal. Just seemed like an anomaly. She was mentioned throughout the filing and was listed as being a defendant at the beginning. She was also mentioned in the “Prayer for Relief.”[10]
The first Cause of Action (charge) starts at page 200 and goes on with a total of 7 Causes of Action ending at page 212. It’s quite a list.
It isn’t pretty.
Without joy
None of this will be settled by 2024 let alone 2022. There will be mountains of paperwork filed. This is a civil case. Even though AG James has made criminal referrals that doesn’t mean they will happen. There are just so many resources available and cases like this tie up LOTs of lawyers, time and money.
Perhaps more than the monetary judgement that AG James is looking for she is asking for the Trump Organization to cease doing business on its own. She has asked for the Trump family to have their licenses to do business in New York pulled for 5 years. One corrupt man can drag down a lot of people.
You know, for me at least, there really isn’t any joy derived from a filing like this. Trump was President of the United States, after all. I suppose it was inevitable that this would eventually happen after a couple of hundred years, along with a President not accepting that he lost, having the peaceful transfer interrupted, and a coup attempt. We are on the cusp of losing all that has been gained through generations of blood sweat and toil.
It’s sad.
[1] https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22670328/not_assigned_people_of_the_state_of_v_people_of_the_state_of_summons___complaint_1.pdf
[2] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/witch%20hunt
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatty_Cathy
[4] https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/law-and-life/is-pleading-the-fifth-an-admission-of-guilt/#:~:text=What%20Pleading%20the%20Fifth%20Means,one%2C%20at%20least%20not%20legally
[5] NYSCEF DOC. NO. 1, Page 138, Paragraph 510
[6] NYSCEF DOC. NO. 1, Page 133, Paragraph 494
[7] NYSCEF DOC. NO. 1, Page 177, Paragraph 670
[8] NYSCEF DOC. NO. 1, Page 198, Paragraph 747
[9] NYSCEF DOC. NO. 1, Page 200, Paragraph 758
[10] NYSCEF DOC. NO. 1, Page 213, VI