Trump lashes out at financial monitor in business fraud case after she reports errors
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/29/tru...ness-fraud-case-after-she-reports-errors.html
- The request came days after Barbara Jones reported a range of issues — including an allegedly errant $48 million loan — in the former president’s New York civil business fraud case.
- The report came days before Judge Arthur Engoron was expected to deliver a verdict in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ case.
- James accuses Trump, his two adult sons, his company and its top executives of fraudulently inflating Trump’s asset values to boost his net worth and obtain financial perks.
Donald Trump on Monday lashed out at the financial
monitor overseeing the Trump Organization and urged a judge to fire her days after she reported a range of issues — and flagged a questionable $48 million loan — in the former president’s New York civil
business fraud case.
The independent monitor, Barbara Jones, “desperately seeks to justify the continued receipt of millions of dollars in fees going forward,” an attorney for Trump wrote in a letter to Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron.
The attorney, Clifford Robert, said Jones has collected more than $2.6 million in 14 months on the job. New York Attorney General Letitia James has asked Engoron to order that Jones continue to monitor the Trump Organization for at least five years as part of his judgment in the case.
But Robert wrote that Jones’ findings “simply do not support or provide any evidentiary basis for continued oversight.”
Robert made that argument three days after Jones submitted a report to Engoron accusing the Trump Organization of providing incomplete, inconsistent or incorrect information about its financial disclosures.
In a footnote in that report, Jones said she identified a loan between Trump himself and an entity related to Trump Chicago Tower that later turned out not to exist. She was told that the loan was believed to total $48 million, but that there are no agreements memorializing it.
“However, in recent discussions with the Trump Organization, it indicated that it has determined that this loan never existed” and that it would be removed from subsequent forms, Jones wrote.
Robert called that “a demonstrable falsehood” in his letter Monday.
“The Trump entities of course never said the loan did not exist,” he wrote. “Rather, they provided a copy of an internal memorandum reflecting simply that ‘no liabilities or obligations are outstanding’ under the loan at that time.”
“The Monitor’s deliberate mischaracterization casts further doubt on her competency and veracity” and “simply fails to support continued oversight,” he added.
Jones did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on Robert’s letter.
Jones’ report came days before Engoron was expected to deliver a verdict in James’ case accusing Trump, his two adult sons, his company and its top executives of fraudulently inflating Trump’s asset values to boost his net worth and obtain financial perks.
James seeks to ban Trump for life from participating in New York’s real estate industry or serving as an officer or director of a business in the state. She also seeks five-year bans with the same conditions for Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, who took over the Trump Organization after their father became president in 2017. The attorney general also seeks more than $370 million in penalties.
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