TLDR: Trumps Throw Tantrum Over Court Monitor’s Financial Bombshell
A lawyer for the Trumps slammed Judge Barbara S. Jones in a court filing Monday morning, denying Trump lied about a missing $48 million loan.
Retired federal judge Judge Barbara S. Jones has uncovered potential tax fraud at the Trump Organization.
Now that the retired federal judge babysitting the Trump Organization has uncovered potential tax fraud at the company, the Trumps responded by tasking their own accountant as a monitor that monitors the court monitor. In an indignant court filing Monday morning, a lawyer for the Trumps for the first time launched an all-out attack on Judge Barbara S. Jones—calling her latest report on the family company an absolute lie, a cheap attempt to justify her government-mandated job, and a last-minute ploy to bolster the New York Attorney General’s bank fraud case that just wrapped up.
The Trumps complained about the $2.6 million they’ve had to pay Jones to do her job, dismissing her findings wholesale. The counterpunch comes just days after Jones revealed a bombshell about former President Donald Trump’s finances.
Since then, Jones has issued nearly half a dozen reports indicating that, for the most part, all is well. That is, until Friday, when she updated Engoron with a report that suggested Trump lied for years about a supposed personal loan he made to one of his own companies—sleight of hand that may have allowed him to dodge taxes on nearly $50 million in income.
The filing also references a “discussion” that Trump Org counsel Alan Garten had with Jones about this loan, but offers no details about what was said in the conversation.
The Trumps also fired back against Jones by recruiting their own certified public accountant to back up their claim that she’s got it all wrong, one who wrote that “the Monitor did not identify any financial reporting misconduct, suspicious activity, or any suspected or actual fraud.” But that too might fail to convince the judge, because it came from Jason Flemmons, a CPA who lost credibility when testifying at the recent bank fraud trial.
So far, the period reports issued by Jones have been muted, failing to reveal much of anything spicy or salacious. The closest they came to that was in November, when she caught Trump quietly moving $40 million from the Trump Organization into a personal bank account, apparently to cover a whopping $29 million tax bill. But even that didn’t hint at any wrongdoing.
In the closing pages of his Monday court filing, Robert downplayed her nearly year-long investigation as nothing more than a costly exercise in hunting for minor mistakes that don’t amount to anything. And he called her recent findings “self-serving hyperbole.”
Keywords: Trump Organization, tax fraud, court monitor, potential tax fraud, Trumps lawyer, court filing, Judge Barbara S. Jones, personal loan, potential tax fraud, Jason Flemmons, certified public accountant, financial reporting misconduct, suspicious activity, bank fraud trial
