Abraham Lincoln said, “you cannot keep a catalogue of your lies.” Which is sad, and we mean that strongly, because Donald Trump needs one. He just blew it bigly in the New York case. Oh, Mamma, did he blow it. Insider is running a story entitled “In April Trump said his private-jet LLC was worth no more than $1,001. Then in July he said it was worth $25 million. Why?
Why? I would guess because it’s because he’s always had a double set of books, one that he shows lenders or prospective lenders and another that he shows Uncle Sam and n’er shall the twain meet — just ask his accountant, who went to prison. Then the story goes to bullet points and here those are. I daresay Leticia James is falling off her chair reading this.
- Revised Trump ethics filings show massive shifts in the value of some Trump entities.
- Trump claims to own $2.8 million in Ethereum cryptocurrency and $100,000 to $250,000 in gold bars.
- Trump did not break out earnings on deals for trademarks he’s registered in Iran, China, Ukraine, and other foreign countries.
His assets are divided among a web of interlocking LLCs. Their stated value fluctuates wildly, rising when the Trump Organization approaches banks to seek credit, and then declining when it’s time to pay taxes. Letitia James, the New York State attorney general, has alleged that Trump’s creative approach to bookkeeping amounts to fraud. But that doesn’t seem to have convinced Trump that he needs to stick with one set of numbers.
Two sets of Trump’s 2023 financial disclosures show vastly different valuations for a number of Trump entities. The first disclosure, filed in April, was Trump’s required filing as a presidential candidate. The second one, in July, revised the statements made by the first.
The most extreme example is TAG Air, Inc. The company is one of a number of Trump entities associated with the former president’s Boeing 757-200. In an April filing with the Office of Government Ethics, Trump claimed that the TAG Air had a value of $1,001 or less. Then, in a revised July filing, Trump valued TAG Air at between $5 million and $25 million.
Time out. There is no way in hell that a jet airplane is worth a thousand dollars — or less. I have a 20-year-old Honda in the garage that’s worth a hell of a lot more than that. The initial figure is insulting and I’m frankly amazed an accountant or even a bookkeeper would have entered it in a ledger. But that said, this is the man whose Truth Social auditor abruptly quit one day, leaving Digital World Acquisition Company in one hell of a fix and it was probably due to nonsense like this.
I can believe the plane would be worth $5 million. Perhaps it is in fact worth $25 million. We’re talking a Boeing 757, here, not a small Cessna, or even a Lear jet. But one thousand bucks? Or less? If I was an auditor working for Trump, I’d quit on the spot, too, looking at numbers like this. And may I just drop into the conversation the fact that Mar-a-Lago was recently “sold” to Trump Jr. for $425,000,000? Just saying.
In the mere three months that elapsed between the two disclosures, Trump’s estimate of TAG Air’s value jumped by a factor of 5,000 or more. It’s unclear what prompted Trump’s accountants to make such a drastic change. Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign, did not respond to a request for comment.
I’ll bet he didn’t and I’ll bet he won’t.
During the 2016 campaign, taxpayers reportedly paid TAG Air $1.6 million to cover the cost of transporting the Secret Service agents charged with protecting him. A person who has dealt with Trump in the past told Insider that the changing valuation could be driven by worries that James’s New York case could use the old forms, with the lower figures, as evidence in her case. “Trump has always played fast and loose with numbers,” they said. “Now that sloppiness is coming to an end. All of a sudden, because of litigation and discovery, he has to provide accurate information.”
And it’s not just his aeroplanes that are suddenly worth a fortune, my heavens, no. Now his property in Ireland has also jumped 1000%. Damn. I wish I could wake up one morning and everything I own is worth 1000% more than it was last night. I’d charter Trump Force One (well maybe not that plane, but something similar) and we’d all go party on an island.
Trump’s TIGL Ireland Management Limited soared from an initial value of $1,001 or less to a range of $1 million to $5 million. The company manages Trump’s hotel and golf course in Ireland and sent the Secret Service a bill for then-Vice President Mike Pence’s 2019 visit to Ireland. Briarcliff Manor Development LLC, a company that has come under direct scrutiny by Attorney General James, saw the same movement between valuation ranges, showing an apparent gain of one thousand times or more.
Ethics lawyer Richard Painter raises an interesting point.
“We have no idea what’s going on,” said Painter, who has testified before Congress on the need for a bigger window into candidates’ finances. “We shouldn’t have to guess. If you have someone who is running for president and they have an LLC, we should know what’s in it, what it owes, and where its revenue is coming from. If the LLC has debt, are they borrowing from Chase Manhattan Bank, or are they borrowing from the Russians? We don’t know, and we ought to know.”
Are they borrowing from Chase Manhattan Bank or the Russians? This is a question that might have been posed by a character in a political satire but prior to Donald Trump, it was never seriously posed in print, let alone by a former White House ethics lawyer, and during a GOP primary. We do live in amazing times, where fiction only wishes it could be half as strange and interesting as truth. Poor Fiction. She used to be so exciting and wondrous, and now Truth makes her look like a dowager.
And as to Trump suing the judge in the New York fraud case, here’s the gist of that. Daily Beast:
Thursday’s court filing claims Engoron and James are both acting to defy appellate orders that could narrow the AG’s behemoth bank fraud lawsuit, putting the judge in the awkward position of having to use lawyers to defend himself alongside the AG. He is expected to be represented by the local court administration’s own lawyers.
Trump’s legal team says Engoron is overstepping his authority, and they want an appellate judge to put him in his place. It’s the latest escalation against the trial court judge, who has increasingly grown tired of their delay antics.
This summer, a state appellate court ordered Engoron to figure out which real estate deals by the Trump Organization are too old for the AG to examine for potential bank and insurance fraud. The judge has yet to draw a cutoff, even though he is expected to do so in the coming days.
But Team Trump can’t wait, and they’re itching to use this as a method to push back the trial. When they requested a three-week delay, Engoron immediately shot that down.
In Thursday’s court filing, the Trump lawyers complained about the way Engoron was “terse” in his curt, nine-word order in which he simply wrote, “Decline to sign; Defendants’ arguments are completely without merit.”
They argued that the judge’s “summary rejection… demonstrates he has no intent to do so and deems the notion that he is bound by this court’s mandate to be ‘completely without merit,’” framing Engoron’s decision as an act of defiance.
For the moment things are delayed. The good news about a move like this if that if a party to a lawsuit is given the benefit of every single procedural move in the book, then that party cannot come back later and sue for mistrial on the basis of some form of due process being denied. So this is far from a time to panic.
And Trump has four trials, a veritable conga line, starting in October, going through March, and don’t forget the second E. Jean Carroll trial, that’s in there as well.
And of course the truly wild aspect of this, is that these trials comprise Trump’s entire campaign. No policies, no promises (other than revenge) no nothing, other than persecution and it’s Trumpian corollary, grift.
When sport is played between two sides, which much of it is, there is a universal rule that you play the other side. If you try to involve the referee it’s game over.
How can Dimwit Donny not know this?
If you take on the people that set and interpret the rules, they’ll rule you out.
Coaches work the refs all the time. If they are good at it they get some breaks and don’t pi$$ off the ref. A GOOD ref. (and once upon a time I was one and considered a good one – I was already moving up in reputation and level when I went into the Corps at age 26) when pissed off keeps his or her cool. Calls it straight. Refuses to be “worked” which sets off an a-hole coach even more. Sadly their mistakes because they can’t keep their cool cause their team to lose games because the coach gets more wrapped up in the ref than tending to the team’s needs and performance.
Trump, like so many other rich and powerful people has a career spent working the refs be it regulators, or the courts. However he’s now facing prosecutors and judges who he can’t “work” and it’s driving him crazy.
Short Trip.
Coaches work the refs. Players don’t.
Trump always wanted to be a player, now he is one. In a court case.
For the most part players can’t get away with working the refs like coaches do, but there are in fact players that managed to do so. Not many have the stature to get away with it but that’s also part of things.
Trump’s oblivious to all that. When the first impeachment happened he was insulting senators and McConnell said exactly what you just said, “how can he be so stupid as to piss off his own jurors?” Trump really is one of the stupidest men alive. That’s why it’s astonishing what he’s gotten away with, but he’s been able to buy his way out of trouble his entire life, plus he’s got the GOP running interference for him now.
Granted, he totally lacks basic intelligence, but he also possesses the greatest arrogance and entitlement I’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter.
What’s that old expression, “pride goeth before a fall?”
Trump is one of the stupidest men alive? That’s hilarious. What does that make Biden? The man can’t cheat gum and walk at the same time without falling. He can’t hold a 2 minute press conference without mumbling incoherently until he’s mercifully pulled away. His level of incompetence is unmatched and unprecedented in Presidential history and the results of his policies have been disastrous. Yet he somehow manages to escape oversight or punity while making millions per year peddling policy just like Hillary did. I wonder what the common denominator is between this two? Meanwhile for all of Trumps indictments, Trump didn’t make a dime illegally while in office. instead of prioritizing Biden and his son for indictments and an impeachment, the Democratic party and their lapdog media are obsessed with securing Trumps disqualification for Presidential candidacy. The double standards and unethical/criminal conduct the Democratic party are engaging in is so transparent, other countries are mocking our model of “Democracy” and the polls prove that most Americans are so disgusted with what’s going on that Trumps popularity grows with each new indictment. Since you seem to enjoy citing expressions, here’s one that seems relevant in this political climate… You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.”
Wow. One untrue, dumbazz statement after another. That orange Kool-Aid must be some powerful stuff.
Orange Kool aid? I’m sorry, but what political party has been running this country while it has declined in every political and social dynamic? Who’s son and family made and continues to make millions from the Ukraine and China? Who’s the senile President that has fumbled, bumbled and incoherently mumbled every domestic and foreign affair issue he has touched? If anyone is drinking Kool Aid, it’s his supporters who must be drinking the Geritol laced version, because you’d have to be just as senile as Biden is to not recognize his incompetence and corruption. Trump may be pompass, politically incorrect and possibly even criminal in his tax or business dealings, but as a President, he didn’t engage in pay for pay schemes and before Covid hit, we were doing much better. with him (policy wise) than we are today. Personally, I don’t want to see either of the two in office again. Having to choose between the two is choosing the lesser of two evils, but I find it absolutely mind boggling when Biden supporters obsessively search for the needle in the hay stack to indict and disqualify Trump while completely ignoring Bidens hay stack of lies, career long criminal profiteering and gross incompetence. Kool-Aid indeed.
Trump is a Sliver Spoon Man Baby! This is who the GQP worships. Beware of False Prophets and as you sow so shall Yee reap! And for whom the bell tolls, the bell tolls for thee mr. Trump.
Silver spoon? So now, you are finding fault with him because his father helped finance his real estate ventures which he turned into a multiple billion empire? i call that taking advantage of good and legitimate fortune and succeeding in a competitive and volatile real commercial estate market. If anything, his business wealth allowed him to not have to peddle policies to build personal wealth like Hillary and Biden, so I’m not sure how you see that as a bad thing. This is another shiny example of how Biden supporters obsessively try to find fault with the most trivial of Trump issues while ignoring the significant level of ineptitude and corruption surrounding Biden that directly impacts every American in this country. in your eyes, discrediting Trump over his inherited wealth or Tax filings, supercedes an immigration crises created by Biden that is costing billions in tax payer money and putting this country at a security risk. It supercedes the billions in aid Biden is giving the Ukraine, much of it entangled in accounting gaffes, while Biden and others inexplicably profit from it. It matters more than the holding him and his administration accountable for the worst economic recession in over 40 years. It matters more than the lives lost, the betrayal of foreign allies and the billions in military equipment lost in Afghanistan thanks to Bidens incompetence. it matters more than Bidens mishandling of America’s energy dependence while he invests and profits from his China green energy pursuits. it matters more than his failures in managing Afghanistan, Iran, N Korea, Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, and other foreign affairs. it matters more than his failure to help the people in Maui who have lost their family, land, homes and everything they ownex while their island is being pirated and exploited by wealthy Centerview and conglomerates. It even matters more than investigating the millions Biden and his son have and continue to transparently take in through illegal policy peddling to known corrupt foreign entities in the Ukraine and China. Here’s an excerpt from an article summizing Bidens Presidency… “”Instead of defeating COVID-19 and unifying the country like he promised, President Biden has worsened our divisions and made Americans poorer and less safe than when he assumed office. Under the Democrats’ control of Congress and the White House, energy costs and the price of everyday goods have skyrocketed, our enemies no longer fear us, violent crime is on the rise, our supply chain is broken, and unvaccinated and untested illegal immigrants are welcomed into the United States while deadly fentanyl flows over our open border. Congress has a responsibility to correct President Biden’s spineless leadership and prioritize parents, workers, and small businesses.”
But your concern is to condemn Trump for being born into a wealthy family. smh
It’s not that Trump was born to wealth, or had his father front him what even now is a lot of money but in those days a huge amount to try and create hiss own niche of the family business. Or that Trump out-maneuvered the rest of the family to gain total control over the Trump Org. People get born into and grow up in well-off, even rich and powerful families every day. Some turn out to be ok, even really good people who recognize their good fortune and while they continue to make lots for themselves and families they also look to the greater good of society. Some don’t. They believe they are special, that they “earned” every dollar and every bit of privilege they were born into and hold anyone else by which I mean anyone not born into the same wealth and privilege as unworthy. Even with contempt.
The problem I and so many others have with Trump isn’t that he was born rich, or screwed his siblings over but his pretense that while yes, he got a “small” loan from his dad when starting out (which he blew I might add) that he started with virtually nothing, came from “humble” circumstances and created an empire all on his own. The truth is that large as it was by the time Trump entered the family business Trump didn’t build the Trump Org. His dad did. Along with others. Trump just kept maneuvering to gain more control until Fred got too feeble in old age to reign him in.
To put things bluntly, Trump was born on third base and has spent decades trying to convince the country and world he hit a triple. Worse, he goes out of his way to be dickish about it. If he’d been born to actual modest circumstances he’d be hawking used cars on some second rate used car dealer’s lot, not even on Main Street.
So suck his dick if you want to. There are plenty of people born to wealth and privilege to actually admire but Trump is NOT worthy of inclusion in that group. He will take YOUR last dollar if you donate it to him and if you find you need a little of your money back because life for you or worse a loved one took a bad turn he will LAUGH in you face and call you a sucker and loser because to him that’s exactly what you’d be to him.
$1001? Who’s his accountant, George Santos?