Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

Trump is free fallin'.

Mazars letter 'amounts to a declaration' that Trump 'repeatedly misled' them about finances: legal expert



The longtime accounting firm for the Trump Organization on Monday announced that it was severing ties with the former president's company, while also stating that it no longer believes it can vouch for the company's financial statements.

Attorney Luppe Luppen has written up an analysis of the Mazars letter, and he believes that Mazars is indicating it believes that the Trump Organization engaged in financial fraud.

"The determination by Mazars that Trump’s financial statements over a full decade are not reliable through no fault of its own amounts to a declaration that it has been repeatedly misled by its client," he writes.

Luppen also notes that suddenness of the decision shows that Mazars believed it had to act with haste to sever ties from Trump.

"Mazars informed Garten that it wouldn’t be able to complete some tax returns on behalf of the former president and his wife that are due tomorrow," he explains. "According to the date on the letter, February 9, it only gave the Trumps six days to find substitute accountants to finish the job on time."

And finally, Luppen draws attention to a curious detail in the Mazars letter that explain why it has taken so long to make its decision to sever ties.

"Mazars chalked up the delay in preparing these returns... to some unspecified information about what it called 'the Matt Calimari Jr. apartment' that it had been asking for over a period of months and had never received," he writes. "The Trump Org’s security chief is Matthew Calimari, and he and his son reportedly oversee the vast surveillance apparatus at the former president’s commercial properties."

Read the whole analysis here:

https://www.nycsouthpaw.com/p/mazars-noisily-fires-trump

[Rick Plant]

Mazars letter is 'the most calamitous thing that could happen' to Trump: George Conway

Lawyer and Lincoln Project co-founder George Conway is weighing in on the recent news that former President Donald Trump's longtime accounting firm has divorced him.

In a letter that was dated Feb. 9, 2022, Mazars USA made it clear that financial statements related to the former president should no longer been seen as reliable.

According to Conway, "having your financial statements (let alone 10 years worth!) pulled by your accountants is just about the most calamitous thing that could happen... other than perhaps being indicted."

"The determination by Mazars that Trump’s financial statements over a full decade are not reliable, through no fault of its own, amounts to a declaration that it has been repeatedly misled by its client," wrote legal commentator Lupe B. Luppen.


Tax firm Mazars fires Trump Organization as client, says former president’s financial statements are unreliable

The accounting firm Mazars has fired the Trump Organization as a client after saying that a decade’s worth of statements of ex-President Donald Trump’s financial condition “should no longer be relied upon,” the New York Attorney General’s office revealed in a court filing.

Mazars, which for years prepared Trump’s income tax returns, informed the Trump Organization’s top lawyer Alan Garten of that move and conclusion in a letter last Wednesday.

The letter was cited by AG Letitia James’ office on Monday as it asked a state judge to order the Trump Organization, Donald Trump Jr. and his sister Ivanka Trump, and others to comply with subpoenas seeking documents and testimony.

Attorney General Letitia James’ office has been investigating how the Trump Organization valued certain real estate assets in applications for loans, insurance policies, and tax-related issues.

The accounting firm Mazars has fired the Trump Organization as a client after saying that a decade’s worth of statements of ex-President Donald Trump’s financial condition “should no longer be relied upon,” the New York Attorney General’s office revealed in a court filing Monday.

Mazars, which for years prepared Trump’s income tax returns and financial statements used to obtain loans for his company, told the Trump Organization’s top lawyer Alan Garten that it would no longer represent the company due to the lack of reliability of the financial statements in a letter last Wednesday.

The letter was cited by AG Letitia James’ office on Monday as it asked a state judge to order the Trump Organization, Donald Trump Jr. and his sister Ivanka Trump, and others to comply with subpoenas seeking documents and testimony.

James for several years has been investigating how the Trump Organization valued certain real estate assets in applications for loans, insurance policies, and tax-related issues.

Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen has told Congress that the company manipulated the value of those assets depending on the circumstance to obtain better financial terms and to lower its tax obligations.

James’ office said last month that it had determined that statements of Trump’s financial condition described his valuation process “in broad terms and in ways which were often inaccurate or misleading when compared with the supporting data and documentation that the Trump Organization submitted to its accounting firm.”

Those statements were prepared by Mazars based on information provided by the Trump Organization.

Mazars told Garten in Wednesday’s letter that he should inform any recipients that the statements of Trump’s financial condition for 2011 through 2020 “should not be relied upon.”

The firm told Garten that its conclusion was based on filings made by the AG’s office, “our own investigation,” and other information from different parties.

“While we have not concluded that the various financial statements, as a whole, contain material discrepancies, based on the totality of the circumstances, we believe our advice to no longer rely upon those financial statements is appropriate,” Mazars said in its letter to Garten.

Mazars also said in its letter that it would no longer “provide any new work product to the Trump Organization.”

The firm said it based on its decision about the past work’s reliability, “as well as the totality of circumstances, we have also reached the point such that there is a non-waivable conflict of interest with the Trump Organization.”

Mazars said that as of the writing of the letter, “there are only a limited number of tax returns that still remain to be filed, including those of Donald J. Trump and Melania Trump. We will be providing you a list of those returns and their status towards completion separately.”

“The due date to file those returns is February 15, 2022,” Mazars said.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office is conducting a parallel criminal investigation into the issues that James is eyeing in her civil probe.

The DA’s office last year obtained Trump’s personal and corporate tax returns dating to 2011 after a years-long fight by the former president to block a subpoena for those and other documents from Mazars.

Garten did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC.

A Trump Organization spokesperson, in a statement to NBC News, said, “While we are disappointed that Mazars has chosen to part ways, their February 9, 2022 letter confirms that after conducting a subsequent review of all prior statements of financial condition, Mazars’ work was performed in accordance with all applicable accounting standards and principles and that such statements of financial condition do not contain any material discrepancies.”

“This confirmation effectively renders the investigations by the DA and AG moot,” the spokesperson said.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/14/trump-tax-firm-says-documents-not-reliable.html

[Rick Plant]

Mazars revelations could make Trump the 'poster-child' for high-profile tax cheating: former US Attorney



Speaking to MSNBC on Monday, New York Times investigative reporter David Fahrenthold and former federal prosecutor and current law school professor Joyce White Vance explained the details behind the recent divorce between Donald Trump and his accounting firm Mazars USA.

Fahrenthold explained that the financial reports from Mazars were basically a kind of verification that Trump was as rich as he claimed to be and that these reports were often used to convince bankers to give him hefty loans.

"One of the important things is that they're going to have to prove intent," said Fahrenthold. "If Trump misrepresented something about himself or his assets or the lenders, you know, that it was wrong he was misrepresenting something. And without getting in his head how do you prove that? One way you might prove that is by showing the gatekeepers. He lied to the people that represented him in the outside world. The lawyers, the appraisers, the accountants. And they've gone after all three in this case, but the accountants are the most important. They're the ones that had the most documents, knew the most, spoke the most in the context that matters."

MSNBC host Chris Hayes asked Vance how prosecutors are able to determine whether Trump's false claims in his filings were simply mistakes or outright fraud.

Vance said that it could help prosecutors if there are particularly egregious differences in certain valuations -- and she cited the Seven Springs property in Westchester County, New York, where someone told Trump they were valuing the property between $29 and $50 million.

"They turned around and told Mazars that it was worth $161 million," Vance continued. "So, if this all holds up there is some insight into the sorts of internal and external documents that Mazars has now seen, and it's caused them to take this step. The bottom line here is this, there may be something to suggest it was a legitimate business practice as you point out. If not legitimate at least the banks did not rely on these documents too much. That they knew that the puffery was going on. But when it comes to filing taxes you cannot make that argument... one of the focuses in U.S. Attorney's offices around the country is prosecuting people who are in positions of trust who cheat on their taxes. Well, this is the poster-child case."

See the discussion below:

[Rick Plant]

The Trump Mazars scandal is the kind of problem that could end the company or put someone in jail: biographer



Donald Trump was dropped by his financial firm, Mazars USA. This is expected to cause a severe problem for Donald Trump Jr. and Melania Trump, as their tax documents were supposed to be filed on Feb. 15, 2022.

Speaking to MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell, former Trump biographer Tim O'Brien noted that problems like this are the kinds of things that can lead to businesses being closed or prison time.

O'Donnell mentioned the son of Trump Org. security chief Matthew Calamari, who had an apartment gifted to him. In the Mazars letter, they claimed the Trump Organization did not, "after repeated requests, provide information regarding Calamari’s apartment (and misspelled Calamari’s last name)," the Washington Post reported. The apartment must be accounted for because it's valued at over $15,000. It's unclear if it was a gift or it was being paid for by Trump as an expense.

“We believe the only information left to complete those returns is the information regarding the Matt Calimari Jr. [sic] apartment,” Mazars' executive William J. Kelly wrote. “As you know, Donald Bender has been asking for this information for several months but has not received it.”

"And what the Mazars is saying is they believe they won't get the answer," said O'Brien. "I think what we can infer from that is that they believe that Trump is either willingly misleading them or lying to them, the whatever the case may be, they don't want to represent him anymore. These issues of free apartments for employees in the Trump Organization was front and center with Allen Weisselberg's indictment. And some other things investigators were looking at there. The Weisselberg children also got free bees from the Trump Organizations. It's relatively small in the larger scheme of things, but it's enough to put people in the crosshairs and enough to potentially cause some of these people to flip against Trump and provide further evidence, and it's clearly enough for his accounting firm to head for the exits."

He went on to say that what he found interesting was what took the Mazars so long because all of these issues were published in O'Brien's book years ago. Trump sued O'Brien and used a Mazars' document to prove his finances. In that case, they said that the documents "didn't pass the sniff test for accounting documents, but they would stand behind them."

It has been 15 years since then, and now the Mazars are pulling back because of the New York attorney general's investigation.

"I think the firm is worried about its own criminal exposure and civil exposure in this investigations, and they're not going to go down with Donald Trump. If it comes to that," O'Brien continued. "And I think this is a very put a pivotal moment because even if these prosecutions don't play out, this is a real threat to the well-being of the business. If the Trumps cannot get accountants to sign off on their financial statements, there is no bank that is going to be willing to do business with them. At least domestically."

O'Brien explained that the Mazars aren't going to take the fall for Trump over an apartment gifted to Calamari's son if that was the case.

"They have finally had enough. I think this is just the tip of the iceberg and all of it," he said. "And these are the kind of wedges that open the door. A crime is a crime regardless of the amount of money involved in it. And I think that they have to be running in circles right now inside the Trump Organization, given what's occurred today. This is going to end up being one of those pivotal days if we look back on these investigations, that they end up getting the kind of traction that causes the company to go out of business or winds up with any of the trumps in jail. It's going to be moments like this that are going to be part of that narrative."

See the full conversation below:

[Rick Plant]

Donnie and his crime family is about to be indicted.

New filing suggests Trump accounting firm 'has now flipped' in NY fraud probe: MSNBC analyst



Panelists on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" walked through the latest developments in the fraud investigation into the Trump Organization by the New York attorney general's office.

The accounting firm Mazars USA essentially renounced a decade's worth of financial statements they made for Donald Trump's family-owned business, saying they could no longer be viewed as reliable, and NBC News correspondent Tom Winter explained the significance of the move.

"This is not a good development," Winter said. "Every single expert we have spoken with has said it is not something that is normal, it is highly unusual that they would send a letter like this."

"They said they had their internal investigation and received information from inside the company and outside the company that led to them making this decision," Winter added. "They said they have a non-waiveable conflict of interest with the Trump Organization, which could be a potential problem saying no, the Trumps can't waive this here, this isn't a conflict of interest. They said the conflict of interest is on their side of things, [and] as a result they made the statement. The letter was sent on Feb. 9 and then provided to the attorney general, and that's why we're able to see it today."

Winter said it's unclear why Mazars could no longer stand by the statements, saying it's not known whether they prepared fraudulent documents or whether someone else doctored the documents to inflate or deflate the value of real estate holdings.

"It is the right question and probably too soon to say," Winter said. "Accountants will tell you they're only as good as the information they're provided, so if they were provided with the wrong types of information [or] they were not provided with the underlying documentation or somebody instructed them to make material changes to it, those are all the types of things we will have to see what comes out in the course of these various investigations that you referenced. "

MSNBC's John Heilemann wondered whether the accounting firm had turned into a witness against Trump and his family.

"Well, the document that they released last night, if I read that document right, suggests that the accounting firm has already provided over 500,000 pieces of documentation," Heilemann said, "which means there's 525,000 at minimum, which is a very large number. The second thing is that -- and this I'll ask you, Tom. I saw some speculation from other legal experts last night that the conflict of interest could suggest that the accounting firm has now flipped basically and is working, is cooperating actively with the investigations, that's why they realized they were in trouble. They don't want to go for jail for Donald Trump or face huge civil penalties and they're now all in on the civil and [district attorney's] criminal procedures, investigations."

[Rick Plant]

Contents of locked Trump Tower filing cabinets new focus of NY AG Letitia James: report



According to a report from Business Insider, New York Attorney General Letitia James' investigation into the business practices of the Trump Organization is now focusing on the contents of two-dozen locked file cabinets located in Trump Tower.

On the same day that the company's accounting firm severed ties with Donald Trump and his family and suggested the filings they prepared for them should not be trusted, now comes news that James is ramping up her investigation prior to a court hearing later this week.

With the report noting that a hearing is set for Thursday over attempts to get Don Trump Jr and Ivanka Trump to sit for depositions sought by the state's investigators, Insider claimed the cabinets are likely to come up.

"According to sources and recent court filings, investigators' sights are set on two dozen beige, metal file cabinets in the former president's Trump Tower headquarters on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan," the report states. "The cabinets line a back wall of the skyscraper's 26th floor, where Trump has his executive offices."

The report continues, "Given the former president's reportedly heedless way with documents, New York Attorney General Letitia James appears particularly eager to secure their contents," with one insider who wished to be anonymous, stating, "They go back decades."

The report goes on to point out that there are "additional files that are no longer active are stored in an off-site facility."

"Both the AG and the [Mantatan] DA have been looking into possible tax, banking and insurance law violations at The Trump Organization since early 2019, shortly after Trump's prison-bound former attorney, Michael Cohen, testified before Congress that his boss routinely lied about the value of assets to get loans or tax breaks," the report adds. "Nearly three years into these probes, only one official connected to The Trump Organization has faced civil or criminal allegations — CFO Allen Weisselberg, charged with dodging income taxes on more than $1.7 million in perks that the DA says should have been reported as pay."

You can read more here:

https://www.insider.com/letitia-james-trump-tower-files-court-battle-2022-2


Trump about to be hit with racketeering case — 3 oldest kids may get charged too: David Cay Johnston



Donald Trump's family business will be charged with racketeering, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist predicted on CNN on Tuesday.

CNN's John Berman interviewed David Cay Johnston — one of the few journalists to obtain Trump's tax returns — following news that the accounting firm Mazars dropped Trump as a client.

"What happens if Mazars cooperates with investigators?" Berman asked. "Which, by all accounts, it does seem that they are."

"Well, Donald Bender, the Mazars accountant who prepares Trump's tax returns testified before the Manhattan grand jury and New York has this very unusual law, if you testify before the grand jury, you are granted immunity," Johnston explained. "That's not true at the federal level and in other states. So, he no longer is in concern personally for anything he may have done, from the Manhattan prosecutors."

"But, it does mean that Mazars is helping the prosecutors put together the, what I expect, will be a racketeering case. A New York state racketeering case against Trump, the Trump Organization, Allen Weissingberg and probably Donald's three older children," he said, referring to Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump.

New York's Enterprise Corruption and the Organized Crime Control Act, often known as "little RICO," is the state's adaption of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO) that is designed to go after organized crime.

The New York statue can carry prison terms of up to 25 years.

"Where do you think this ends for Donald Trump and the Trump Organization?" Berman asked.

"Well, the civil case -- the civil matter by Letitia James — is going to result in a civil suit making numerous charges of falsification of documents, false claims, and obtaining benefits as a result. The Manhattan grand jury is eventually going to indict Donald Trump," Johnston predicted. "They got 5 million pages of documents, John, they have to go through every one of them before they can finish their work."

"But Donald Trump will be indicted on a state racketeering charge, I'm confident of that," he said. "And perhaps in Westchester County, by Mimi Rocah, the new D.A. there and in Fulton County, Georgia, by Fani Willis, looking into voter fraud and now has a grand jury just for the purpose of investigating Trump's effort to interfere with the Georgia vote count," Johnston added.

Watch:

[Richard Smith]

Just like I said, this phony "convoy" was a funded right wing operation to cause chaos and to disrupt the Canadian and American government. This is the ongoing violent right wing coup to overthrow our governments. 

Hackers Just Leaked the Names of 92,000 ‘Freedom Convoy’ Donors
GiveSendGo, the Christian crowdfunding site that helped raise $8.7 million for the anti-vax “freedom convoy” in Canada, was hacked on Sunday night.

The Christian crowdfunding site that helped raise $8.7 million for the anti-vax “freedom convoy” in Canada was hacked on Sunday night, and the names and personal details of over 92,000 donors were leaked online.

You are really suggesting that giving money to a political cause is somehow not permissible?  And your support for this is apparently someone illegally hacking the name of donors?  Do you see the irony of supporting illegal conduct to advocate against what you are falsely suggesting is illegal conduct?  You would fit in perfectly with the Clinton campaign that illegally hacked in into the WH servers.  Spying on the US President.  A treasonable crime. 

[Rick Plant]

You are really suggesting that giving money to a political cause is somehow not permissible?  And your support for this is apparently someone illegally hacking the name of donors?  Do you see the irony of supporting illegal conduct to advocate against what you are falsely suggesting is illegal conduct?  You would fit in perfectly with the Clinton campaign that illegally hacked in into the WH servers.  Spying on the US President.  A treasonable crime.

First of all this is not a "political cause". This is another violent insurrection set up by far right wing extremists and the money is being funneled by hate groups and other far right groups. And I never condoned any hacking. Once again you make up stuff against me. Pathetic!

Also, Criminal Donald was never "spied on". He was under an FBI investigation for his Russian involvement. Your right wing media is hyping a lie and a nothingburger. The only ones who committed treason is Criminal Donald and his cohorts and they will all be in prison for an attempted coup against the United States government.

Criminal Donald is a private citizen and he's calling for executions. He should be arrested immediately. Durham is nothing but a right wing political hack.

'The Durham investigation is in real trouble': Legal expert untangles the right wing's latest conspiracy theory

The Donald Trump-appointed special counsel filed a misleading motion that has lit up Fox News and other conservative outlets, but a national security expert threw cold water on their narrative.

Fox News has been hyping special counsel John Durham's filing, which they have inaccurately declared as evidence that Hillary Clinton's campaign had paid technology executive Rodney Joffe to "infiltrate" a White House server, and Trump has called for anyone involved to be executed -- but attorney Marcy Wheeler explained how they had gotten their facts wrong to MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

"One of the things [Durham] revealed in that, which I have heard from other people is this claim that Rodney Joffe was accessing data from the White House," Wheeler said. "All of that data precedes Trump's inauguration, so you have Trump out there calling for these people to be put to death when really what happened is Rodney Joffe was trying to keep [then-president] Barack Obama safe from hackers. That's all it is. That's why Trump wants these people killed, Durham knows that."

"Durham knows that this data precedes Trump," she continued. "He didn't include it in the filing so he has everyone worked up on Fox News. John Ratcliffe, you showed him earlier. Kash Patel is the source of many of these false claims. They were both witnesses to John Durham and Kash Patel has known about this allegation going back to December of 2017 because he's the one who asked [cybersecurity lawyer] Michael Sussman about it. Michael Sussman was honest about it back in December 2017 and Kash Patel when he was an Intelligence Committee staffer, when he was working in the White House, when he was the chief of staff for [the Department of Defense] he did nothing about this because he knew that all Rodney Joffe was doing was trying to keep the White House safe from hackers. That's what this is about."

Durham has accused Sussman of lying to FBI investigators during a September 2016 meeting about Trump's possible links to Russia, and this latest filing centers around the tech executive's investigation of rumors that computers at Trump Tower were communicating with servers at Russia's Alfa Bank.

"The Durham investigation is in real trouble," Wheeler said. "One of the allegations in the indictment is that Sussman was coordinating with the Hillary [Clinton] campaign on these Alfa Bank allegations back in October. Sussman was, like, name the people. In October, Durham said, 'I don't have any people.' In November, he first interviewed a Hillary staffer, he hadn't actually investigated this. We also learned recently that even though Durham and [then-attorney general] Bill Barr flew to Italy to get the phones from Joseph Mifsud, if you remember, is that Italian who was talking to George Papadopoulos. He never walked across DOJ to get the phones from James Baker, who is the single witness to this conversation with Michael Sussman. He didn't find out that DOJ [inspector general] had two of the phones until January. Then, after he revealed that he had these phones that he should have looked for four years ago, he then had to disclose that he had been told about one of the phones back in 2018 but he didn't remember it anymore."

"That's not the only thing that Durham didn't do before charging Sussman," Wheeler added.

She listed other flaws in Durham's investigation, and she expects Sussman to file a motion to dismiss the indictment against him -- and she believes the special counsel filed his pretrial motion last week to get ahead of that move.

"Probably what last Friday's stunt was about for Durham was an attempt to preempt that, an attempt to pretend that this investigation isn't kind of post-hoc a discovery of things," Wheeler said. "For example, he didn't investigate what the FBI's relationship is with Rodney Joffe before he charged Michael Sussman. He only pulled the communications when Sussman said, 'Why don't you find out what kind of relationship the FBI has with Joffe.' He discovered there were thousands of communications, so Durham is very close to position where Sussman is going to have the opportunity to say, 'You didn't do an investigation before you charged me.'"

"A week before he probably is going to have to do that this stunt comes out and you have all of these people who were witnesses, who fed these conspiracy theories to Durham on the front end," Wheeler concluded, "who then go on Fox News and make false claims about it. That's what the story is, Kash Patel garbage in, Kash Patel garbage out, and Trump threatening to kill people as a result."