ALL IN THE FAMILY

The tell all book by Donald’s niece Mary L. Trump PhD and a clinical psychologist that says he is a sociopath.  She has written a book that explains of the symptoms and he exhibits all of them. Too Much and Not Enough tells of the family tax fraud schemes that taxpayers are still paying for. The book also outlines the family schemes that cost his sister Maryanne her judgeship, which Donald was a part. 

The fraud story starts with his sister Maryanne Trump being appointed to the Federal bench that oversees New Jersey. Donald asked his fixer Roy Cohn to pull strings and in turn, Cohn gave Ed Meese the Attorney General a call.  A few weeks later she was appointed. Trump thought it would be useful to have a relative in New Jersey, a place where he was attempting to do a lot of business.

Trump’s sister Maryanne resigned her lifetime appointment to the bench in order to end an inquiry into her role in a 1990’s tax fraud scheme she and her siblings were all involved in, to bilk taxpayers of money owed. She basically resigned to save her $200,000/year pension.

This tax fraud scheme involved hundreds of millions of dollars over multiple years. Mary, the author of the book, met with Maryanne after the N.Y. Times ran an article on October 2, 2018. The article was 14,000 words long and produced a litany of potential fraud, and criminal tax schemes her grandfather, aunts, and uncles had engaged in. The times article was based on real estate documents provided by Mary and it the article outlined the fraud. These grifts happened 60 years ago. But in the book, Maryanne denied the story when confronted by Mary, by saying, “She was just a girl, after all.  When a piece of paper requiring her signature had been put in front of her, she’d sign it no questions asked.” Maryanne went on to say, “This article goes back 60 years. That’s before I was a judge, she said, as if the investigation had ended 60 years before. She seemed unconcerned that there would be any repercussions”. There were repercussions.

  As a result of the Times article, a court inquiry had been opened, investigating her conduct in the matter. The court said in order to put an end to the inquiry she had to resign.  The Fraud scheme that caused Trump’s sister to resign was based on undervaluing the appraisal of their father’s assets, to avoid taxes and also a scheme to screw other family members of their rightful inheritance. 

It is estimated Donald Trump received the equivalent of $413 million from his father’s real estate empire. Mary’s father, Trump’s older brother Fred died in 1981 and died young at the age of 42, long before Trump’s father Fred Sr died in 1999. The total estate was worth about 1 billion dollars when Fred Trump died.

Donald and his three remaining siblings drained the estate by setting up trusts draining the estate of assets to reduce her share when it went to probate.  Mary was told the estate was only worth $41.4 million and her father had a 20% interest in properties. Donald’s father Fred Trump had Alzheimer’s and was easily persuaded to sign over the fortunes to his children’s trust leaving out Mary and her brother Fred. The value Donald received is much more than the 1 million dollars he claimed to have received from his father’s empire. 

“Trump’s family dodged hundreds of millions in gift taxes by submitting tax returns that grossly undervalued the properties, claiming they were worth just $41.4 million.”

In another scheme the family siphoned millions of dollars of Fred Trump’s empire by simply creating a separate company called “All County” and marking up millions in building and construction purchases, that had already been made by their employees. All County then charged Fred Trump. This created untaxed gifts for the Donald his siblings and a cousin operating the scheme.

The Times article in 2018 was the first Mary had learned the settlement and the non-disclosure they had agreed to had severely underestimated the worth of the Fred Trump real estate empire and how Donald and his siblings had shortchanged the others. 

 In order to publish the book, Mary had to overcome her non-disclosure agreement she had signed because the settlement was part of the agreement. The agreement had undervalued the assets and thus the agreement was based on a fraud, making the agreement also a fraud and therefore void.  That is how she was able to publish.

TRUMP TAXES AND FINANCIAL RECORDS-SCOTUS UPDATE

The Supreme Court rendered two decisions that have been put off until the final day.  The decision are if it is allowed or not the disclosure of financial records to the New York state prosecutors, and if congress can compel the President to provide his federal taxes. If the tax records go back far enough the schemes will come out. They will also show tax treatments for things like the Stormy Daniels payments, and the sources of his loans and to whom he is indebted too.

The Supremes have spoken and the ruling is not surprising.  Most individuals that follow the Supreme Court predicted a similar outcome. 

The first decision was to allow the New York prosecutors access to Trump’s records stemming from subpoenas for his records including tax returns. This is devastating for the Attorney Generals admonition that Trump cannot be prosecuted while in office. This gives the go ahead for that prosecution. It is also devastating for his attempt to keep his tax returns out of the hands of congress. 

This brings me back to the second decision. This decision denied, at this time, the request by Congress asking for Trump’s Tax Records. This was ruled as overreaching and non- specific and threw the case back to lower courts to work on the request. The result will mean that congress in effect, will be denied his taxes prior to November.  Or does it?

The result of the New York decision has a secondary benefit.  Trump’s taxes in the hands of the New York prosecutor can be provided to congress as a result of a law passed in New York that allows congress, upon request, any Federal tax returns in there possession. Trump challenged the law in NY State Supreme Court and lost.  Will they be made public?  Did he cheat like he has on everything else?