As if the 91 criminal indictments, raging lawsuits and investigations, and the $83.3 million defamation judgment hanging over his head weren’t enough, it looks like Donald Trump is about to be in even more trouble, as it seems he just can’t stop committing crimes, no matter how deep he digs his hole.
Last year, a special monitor was appointed by the court to keep close tabs on the Trump Organization’s financials in connection to the $370 million financial fraud case that’s still going against former president Donald Trump. Now, the Daily Beast’s Roger Sollenberger breaks reporting on a “bombshell” footnote contained in documents recently filed by that special monitor that raises serious questions about a $50 million Trump loan that appears as though it may not even actually exist and further points to potential, sprawling tax fraud and evasion by the ex-president’s family company, according to ethics and tax experts.
Sollenberger’s report points to a “major revelation” that was included in the footnotes of former federal judge turned special monitor over the Trump Org Barbara Jones’ most recent report on the financial status of the Trump Organization.
Jones told the court in the new documents, “When I inquired about this loan, I was informed that there are no loan agreements that memorialize the loan, but that it was a loan that was believed to be between Donald J. Trump, individually, and Chicago Unit Acquisition for $48 million.”
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Her report goes on to add, “However, in recent discussions with the Trump Organization, it indicated that it has determined that this loan never existed—and thus that it would be removed from any upcoming forms submitted to the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) and would also be removed from subsequent versions of [corporate financial statements].”
Sollenberger writes:
If true, that would essentially be an admission from the Trump Organization that all the financial disclosures Trump has filed with the federal government listed an entirely fictional debt worth tens of millions of dollars, which Trump claimed he personally owed to one of his own companies.”
Chief legal counsel for the Trump Organization, Alan Garten, attempted to do some damage control by pushing back against Jones’ discovery in an interview, saying, “That’s one of many inaccuracies contained in the monitor’s letter, which we will be addressing with the court,” before admitting, “Yes, the loan existed.”
But experts are already speaking out, saying something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Speaking with Sollenberger Jordan Libowitz, of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW), said the conflicting information just does not and cannot line up.
“When you fill out your personal financial disclosures, you attest under penalty of the law that the information is true. Trump had to know that his Chicago business never gave him a loan of more than $50 million, as he claimed, repeatedly,” Libowitz explained, adding, “While the reasons behind claiming this fake loan are still unknown, at the very least he misled the government for years about his finances. It appears that Trump knowingly and intentionally broke the law. The only question is how many laws.”
D.C. tax lawyer Martin Lobel also weighed in with similar sentiment, noting, “It would appear, assuming Judge Jones’ letter is accurate, that this amounts to tax evasion.”
Frankly, I’m not even surprised at this point.
You can read the full report here.
Featured image via Political Tribune Gallery
