New York investigations of the Trump Organization

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New York investigations of The Trump Organization
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Trump Tower (Manhattan, New York), headquarters of the Trump Organization and a subject of scrutiny for financial misreporting in the civil case

Two related investigations by New York State and City officials were opened by 2020 to determine whether

New York State Attorney General
(AG). The DA's case has led to two of the organization's subsidiary companies being found guilty of 17 charges including
tax fraud and the indictment of Donald Trump
, while the AG has succeeded in imposing an independent monitor to prevent future fraud by the organization.

By mid-2021, New York AG

Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 500 times in his testimony. In August 2022, Weisselberg pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against the organization in exchange for a reduced sentence. In December, the organization was convicted of all 17 criminal charges it faced. Evidence including the testimonies of Weisselberg and others indicate that he and other executives—as well as the two subsidiaries—participated in fraudulent schemes, including recording some employee bonuses as pay for contract work. A number of illegal practices were ceased around the time of Trump's election as U.S. president
.

In 2020, Eric Trump pleaded the Fifth over 500 times in his testimony for the AG. In November 2021, The Washington Post reported that between 2011 and 2015 the organization presented several properties as being worth far more to potential lenders than to tax officials. Donald Trump reportedly pleaded the Fifth more than 400 times in his August 2022 deposition. In September, James filed a civil lawsuit against Trump, his three oldest children, and the organization for alleged fraud. Additionally, she referred the case to federal criminal prosecutors and the Internal Revenue Service. In November, the New York judge overseeing the lawsuit appointed retired judge Barbara S. Jones to monitor the organization, and a trial was scheduled for late 2023.

Background

Donald Trump in 2015

The financial statements of the Trump Organization's holdings are private, and there exist a wide range of estimates of the organization's true value. Donald Trump has been accused on several occasions of deliberately inflating the valuation of Trump Organization properties through the aggressive lobbying of the media, in particular the authors of the annual Forbes 400 list, in order to bolster his perceived net worth among the public over several decades.[1] He has released little definitive financial documentation to the public to confirm his valuation claims.[2][3][4][5] It is difficult to determine a net value for the Trump Organization's real-estate holdings independently since each individual property may be encumbered by debt.[1] In October 2015, Forbes published an article detailing its decades-long struggle to estimate the true net worth of Trump and the organization.[6] In 2018, a former Forbes journalist who had worked on the Forbes list claimed in an op-ed to The Washington Post that Trump had lied about his wealth to Forbes to get on the list repeatedly and suggested that Forbes's previous low-end estimates of Trump's net worth were still well above his true net worth.[1]

On a

tax fraud and that Trump should release his tax returns to disclose whether he had repeated such behavior.[7]

In a defamation case against

Donald Jr. and Eric Trump, as well as Weisselberg.[11]

Donald Trump's father, Fred, c. 1986

In October 2018, The New York Times published a lengthy exposé concerning Donald Trump's inheritance from his parents, Fred and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump. It includes detailed analyses of Trump family financial records.[a] The article describes an alleged tax fraud scheme conducted by Trump and his siblings related to their joint inheritance of their parents's real estate holdings, effectively evading over $500 million in gift and estate taxes. The alleged schemes involve money from the companies being siphoned to the children throughout their lives and understating the value of transferred properties.[12][b] The New York State Department of Taxation and Finance announced on the day of the exposé's publication that it would review the allegations.[16][17] In mid-2021, Mary L. Trump (a primary source for the exposé) elaborated on how the organization used a shell corporation to siphon money, devaluing Fred Trump's "core business" to $30 million at the time of his death.[18]

In August 2018,

House Ways and Means Committee,[24][25][26] and following the committee's vote,[26] the returns were released to the public before the end of the year.[27]

In February 2019, prompted by U.S. House Representative

New York Attorney General (AG) Letitia James began investigating the organization,[31] having stated that she intended to do so during her 2018 campaign.[32] By September 2019, the organization was under federal investigation by the Southern District of New York regarding inflated insurance claims allegations.[33] By December, James's office had subpoenaed the organization for some records which it subsequently failed to provide for at least 21 months.[34]

Criminal investigation

By 2020, the Manhattan district attorney (DA) had opened a criminal investigation to determine whether The Trump Organization, including any individuals or business entities associated with it, had committed financial fraud. The investigation led to three grand juries being convened, two of which approved indictments.

The first indictment named

tax fraud
in a trial in late 2022.

The second indictment charged Donald Trump was criminally indicted with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in tandem with an alleged catch and kill operation to suppress negative press during his 2016 campaign, largely revolving around the hush-money payment to pornographic actress Stormy Daniels.[c] Trump is the first former U.S. president to be criminally charged.[d] On April 4, 2023, he pleaded not guilty. Further proceedings took place over the next year, with a trial expected to begin on April 15, 2024.

Some conservative pundits denounced the investigation, with the

U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan
organized a hearing against Bragg, leading the DA to sue him for alleged interference.

Trump Corporation case