According to a new report from Business Insider today, ex-President Donald Trump may have inadvertently screwed far more than just himself when it comes to his shady business practices, as the report claims thousands of other clients of real estate services conglomerate Cushman & Wakefield, used by the Trump Organization, may soon find themselves unwillingly caught up in New York’s investigation into the former president’s family business.
The firm itself has been caught up in the NY probe after it was discovered that it may have heavily assisted Donald Trump and the Trump Organization in wildly misrepresenting the values of various Trump properties, in an effort to acquire more favorable tax breaks and loans for the now-former president and his family-owned company. Cushman & Wakefield is currently appealing a court order that demands they turn over property valuations completed by five different appraisers who worked on various Trump properties that are now under investigation by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
“The Cushman records James wants — and which Cushman is fighting against turning over — center on five Cushman employees who did the appraisals for the Trump National Golf Club near Los Angeles, 40 Wall Street in Manhattan, and Seven Springs, a 212-acre estate in New York’s Westchester County,” Business Insider reports. “The five targeted appraisers, ‘have made repeated misstatements in the documents we’ve seen so far,’ concerning those three properties, a lawyer for the AG’s office, Austin Thompson, argued in a Manhattan court hearing last month.”
Now it seems that the investigation into the five Cushman appraisers could have consequences that reach further and wider than simply the ex-president and his corrupt company.
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“Cushman attorney Sawnie A. McEntire has said in court hearings that the subpoenas are ‘outrageous and overbroad,’ and that complying would violate the privacy of some 1,000 clients unrelated to the Trump Organization,” the report reads. “And the clients would know. Each would have to be told that their appraisals had been subpoenaed, as required by their engagement contracts.”
McEntire admitted that the company has “incurred billions of dollars in attorney fees and expenses, in complying with their subpoenas.”
If everybody didn’t hate you before now, Donnie…
Read the full report from Business Insider here.
Featured image via Political Tribune gallery
