Bombshell reporting from Business Insider revealed that prosecutors presented evidence to the Trump Organization criminal tax-fraud trial jury that directly links former President Donald J. Trump to his family company’s alleged tax-dodging scheme — through none other than the ex-president’s infamous Sharpies.
According to brutal reporting, prosecutors presented jurors with evidence that consisted of key, damning documents, featuring Donald Trump’s notorious Sharpie-scrawled signatures and initials sprawled across them.
Business Insider’s damning report on the matter reads:
This early prosecution breakthrough came Tuesday in the Manhattan courtroom where Trump’s real-estate and golf resort empire — though not Trump himself — is on trial for allegedly helping its executives cheat on their income taxes.
Jurors were shown what the prosecution said and what a witness confirmed were Trump’s signatures on some half-dozen important letters and payroll documents. It’s evidence meant to soundly refute defense claims that the tax-dodge scheme stopped one rung down from the very top of the company, meaning just short of involving anyone named Trump.
The documents were introduced through the trial’s first witness, Jeffrey McConney, who as Trump Organization’s controller is responsible for its payroll and tax reporting.”
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This trial found a bit of a wrench thrown in the middle of things when McConney surprisingly tested positive for COVID-19 during a lunch break amid the proceedings. Following the positive COVID test, the trial and the Trump Organization insider’s testimony were tentatively scheduled to resume first thing the following Monday morning.
However, Insider reports that McConney’s morning testimony, ahead of the COVID diagnosis, was about as damning for Donald Trump as it gets, as the Trump Organization controller repeatedly stated, “Donald Trump,” “Mr. Trump” and “President Trump” when prosecutors asked him to identify the signatures on multiple documents that were being displayed on the screens inside the courtroom.
At one point during his testimony, McConney identified Donald Trump’s signature on a 17-year-old letter, in which the now-former president authorized a lease on a Hudson River waterfront apartment in Manhattan for $6,500 a month. This is the same infamous apartment that was said to have housed the notorious longtime Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg, who is currently embroiled in his own criminal charges in relation to the Trump-owned company and has recently agreed to start talking with investigators for a possible lightened sentence.
Joshua Steinglass, one of the two lead prosecutors on the case, questioned, “In other words, Donald J. Trump authorized Donald J. Trump to sign the lease.” McConney, through coughs, answered, “Yes.”
Read the full report from Business Insider here.
Featured image via Flickr/Gage Skidmore, under Creative Commons license 2.0
