INSURRECTION'S LEADER - Donald Trump

Hint....I don't like Donald Trump.  Donnie is only thinking of himself and how 'great' he is and a dictator-want-to-be.  He does not believe in the Rule of Law and has never supported the U.S. Constitution.

"With mounting legal challenges, what are the potential consequences for Trump?" PBS NewsHour 2/16/2021

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SUMMARY:  A top Democrat in the House of Representatives sued former President Trump Tuesday for allegedly inciting the Capitol Insurrection, adding to his growing legal challenges.  But what conduct is still being looked at and what consequences may result?  WNYC's Andrea Bernstein, who has been reporting on Trump's finances as part of the "Trump Inc." project, joins Judy Woodruff to discuss.

TRUMPCON - Tax Fraud?

"Donald Trump Has Never Explained a Mysterious $50 Million Loan.  Is It Evidence of Tax Fraud?" by Russ Choma, Mother Jones 9/05/2019

A Mother Jones investigation has uncovered new information about a puzzling Trump deal.

Donald Trump’s massive debts—he owes hundreds of millions of dollars—are the subject of continuous congressional and journalistic scrutiny.  But for years, one Trump loan has been particularly mystifying: a debt of more than $50 million that Trump claims he owes to one of his own companies.  According to tax and financial experts, the loan, which Trump has never fully explained, might be part of a controversial tax avoidance scheme known as debt parking.  Yet a Mother Jones investigation has uncovered information that raises questions about the very existence of this loan, presenting the possibility that this debt was concocted as a ploy to evade income taxes—a move that could constitute tax fraud.

Here’s what is publicly known about this mystery debt:  On the personal financial disclosure forms that Trump must file each year as President, he has divulged that he owes “over $50 million” to a company called Chicago Unit Acquisition LLC.  The forms note that this entity is fully owned by Trump.  In other words, Trump owes a large chunk of money to a company he controls.

The disclosures state that this loan is connected to Trump’s hotel and tower in Chicago, and the forms reveal puzzling details about Chicago Unit Acquisition:  It earns no revenue—suggesting that Trump was not paying interest or principal on the loan—and Trump assigns virtually no value to Chicago Unit Acquisition.  Something doesn’t add up.  Under basic accounting principles, a firm that is owed money and has no outstanding debt should be worth at least as much as it is owed.  The loan has another odd feature:  It is identified as a “springing” loan, a type of loan made to borrowers who are viewed as credit risks.  Known sometimes as “bad boy” loans, these agreements allow the lender to impose harsh repayment terms if certain criteria aren’t met.  These are not the type of loan terms that someone is likely to impose on himself.

The Trump Organization has consistently refused to answer questions about Chicago Unit Acquisition, a limited liability company it formed in Delaware in 2005, as construction began on the Trump International Hotel and Tower in downtown Chicago.  But Trump did tell the New York Times in a 2016 interview that this debt represents a loan he repurchased from a group of lenders.  “We don’t assess any value to it because we don’t care,” Trump said.  “I have the mortgage.  That is all there is.  Very simple.  I am the bank.”  Jason Greenblatt, who was then the Trump Organization’s top lawyer, declined to explain to the Times the reason for the Chicago Unit Acquisition deal.  “It’s really personal corporate trade secrets, if you will,” he said.  “Neither newsworthy or frankly anybody’s business.”

Trump has not publicly identified the creditors from whom he bought this loan.  But a 2008 lawsuit Trump filed in connection with the Chicago project—a case that produced voluminous records detailing the financing of this venture—suggests two possibilities.  The majority of the hotel and tower project was bankrolled by Trump’s lender of choice, Deutsche Bank, which gave him a $640 million loan.  Fortress Investment Group, a New York City-based hedge fund, provided Trump an additional $130 million in financing.  (Two other firms, Cerberus Capital Management and Dune Capital Management, partnered with Fortress on this loan.)  According to court records, these were the only loans associated with the construction and development of Trump International Hotel and Tower Chicago.

Trump’s Chicago project quickly became a financial debacle—hence the lawsuit.  The 2008 financial crisis struck as the project neared completion, and Trump, saddled with nearly $800 million in debt, was in jeopardy of defaulting on a $330 million payment he owed to Deutsche Bank in November that year.

To fend off his biggest creditor, Trump attempted a brazen legal gambit.  He sued Deutsche Bank, accusing the firm of causing the housing crisis and economic meltdown that was supposedly inhibiting his ability to sell units in the Chicago project and repay his debts.  Eventually, Trump settled his financial differences with Deutsche by repaying some of the money he owed the bank and refinancing the rest through the bank’s private banking arm, according to records filed with the Cook County Recorder of Deeds.  That is, Trump took out a new loan through Deutsche’s private bank to cover his debt to the firm’s commercial lending side.  This transaction apparently did not involve purchasing any debt, suggesting the debt that Trump claims to have bought could not be from the Deutsche Bank loan.  That leaves the Fortress debt.

In March 2012, as Trump resolved his dispute with Deutsche Bank, he finalized a separate deal with Fortress and its partners to clear his debt with them.  According to a source with direct knowledge of the deal who spoke to Mother Jones, Fortress ultimately agreed to accept 50 cents on the dollar—or about $48 million—for the outstanding debt (which by that time amounted to just under $100 million).  This was a steep loss for the hedge fund and its partners.  The question is whether the deal was what’s known as a “discounted payoff”—in which the debt was considered repaid and the loan was canceled by the lender—or whether Trump purchased what remained of the loan.  That distinction has enormous implications.

When a lender forgives a portion of a loan, the IRS considers the unpaid portion taxable income.  For instance, if a lender accepts $50 million in repayment of a $100 million debt, the borrower, in the eyes of federal tax authorities, has earned $50 million and owes tax on that.  The tax could be as high as 39 percent.  But big-time borrowers have devised a tactic to forestall paying taxes in cases in which they’re able to buy back their debt at a discount.  They purchase the debt through a corporation, parking the loan within this entity to temporarily avoid realizing income.  Debt parking falls into a legal gray area.  “Maybe there are respectable ways that it could work, but I would call it kind of a scam to pretend you haven’t gotten rid of the debt,” says Daniel Shaviro, a professor of tax law at New York University.

Debt parking can be permissible as long as the borrower intends to repay the loan.  Parking debt indefinitely with no intention to repay it, however, violates federal tax law, according to tax experts.

For that reason, Trump’s comment to the Times that “we don’t care” about the loan raised a red flag for several tax experts consulted by Mother Jones.  They wondered whether this was an admission that he has no intention of repaying the loan—an implication reinforced by Trump’s disclosures showing Chicago Unit Acquisition generates no revenue and has practically no value.  And debt parking that essentially places a loan into suspended animation indefinitely would not be considered legal, according to these tax experts.

But the story of Trump’s mystery loan gets even more complicated.  According to two sources with direct knowledge of the disposition of the Fortress loan, Fortress did not sell Trump this loan.  Instead, according to these sources, Fortress canceled the debt after Trump paid about half of it.  “The transaction that Donald Trump did with the lender was a discounted payoff and not a purchase of the loan—I know that for sure,” a person involved with the deal tells Mother Jones.  That means there may have been no loan to buy, no debt to park; Trump might have invented a loan—and then parked it.

Fortress declined to comment on the Trump loan.  Representatives of Cerberus Capital Management and Dune Real Estate Partners (which took over the business once run by Dune Capital Management) did not respond to requests for comment.

To recap: Trump claims he bought a debt related to his Chicago venture, but neither of the two loans associated with this property appear to have been purchased.  The Deutsche Bank loan was refinanced.  The Fortress debt, according to sources with knowledge of the transaction, was canceled.  And this raises a question:  Did Trump create a bogus loan to evade a whopping tax bill on about $48 million of income?

Several legal and real estate finance experts say it’s possible to fabricate a loan.  Doing so would be as easy as creating some paperwork and declaring the debt on your tax returns, though such a scheme would also violate federal tax law.

“When you see it, if you lay all this out, it’s pretty brazen,” says Adam Levitin, a law professor specializing in commercial real estate finance at Georgetown University.  “If he didn’t actually buy the loan, this is just garden-variety fraud.”

Most loans are documented in public records, but Mother Jones could locate no documentation of a loan owned by Chicago Unit Acquisition.  The Cook County Recorder of Deeds has records concerning the original Deutsche Bank loan for the Chicago project; the Deutsche Bank loan that replaced it; and the Fortress loan.  But the Recorder of Deeds has no filings related to Chicago Unit Acquisition.

Not all loans are tied to property and require registration with local authorities.  In those cases, a filing called a Uniform Commercial Code financing statement is typically made.  This is a publicly available legal form in which a creditor states its interest in the event of a loan default.  The $130 million Fortress loan had a UCC statement filed in Delaware in 2005.  Fortress filed a notice that this loan agreement was terminated—it does not specify how—in March 2012.  A search of records in New York (where the Trump Organization is based), Illinois (where the hotel is located), and Delaware (where Chicago Unit Acquisition is registered) found no UCC records related to Chicago Unit Acquisition.

Levitin and Steven Schwarcz, a law and business professor at Duke University, say it’s not totally unheard of for a company to skip filing a UCC statement in cases where one branch of a firm is loaning money to another.  But Levitin says that submitting a UCC statement is standard practice in most scenarios where there is a large amount of collateral at stake. 

Could the Chicago Unit Acquisition loan be legitimate?  The tax and real estate experts interviewed by Mother Jones had a difficult time explaining what this transaction could be.  And the Trump Organization offered no explanations of its own.  The company did not respond to a detailed list of questions from Mother Jones regarding Chicago Unit Acquisition and this loan.  Nor did the White House.

Trump has a track record of pushing the envelope when it comes to paying—or not paying—taxes.  In a Pulitzer Prize–winning investigation examining the origins of the President’s fortune, the New York Times reported in 2018 that “President Trump participated in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud, that greatly increased the fortune he received from his parents.”

Breaking with a four-decade precedent for Presidents, Trump has refused to release his tax returns, which would shed light on the tax strategies he has employed over the years.  But the release of Trump’s returns alone would probably not solve the Chicago Unit Acquisition mystery.  Nor would a standard IRS audit.

“It would take a forensic audit,” says Martin Lobel, a prominent tax lawyer based in Washington, DC.  “It is very labor intensive, and it takes someone who has years of experience to spot the problem areas.” This type of audit would entail combing methodically through every shred of paperwork underpinning Trump’s financial claims.  And Lobel and other tax experts Mother Jones interviewed are dubious that the IRS would mount this type of audit on a sitting President.  “The IRS is not going to look too closely at Trump’s tax returns,” Lobel says.

But congressional Democrats, if they have their way, intend to do just that.  In May, the House Ways and Means Committee subpoenaed the IRS to hand over six years of Trump’s tax returns as part of an investigation into the agency’s presidential audit program.  By law, the IRS must annually audit the returns of a serving President and Vice President, but, as the panel’s chair, Richard Neal (D-Mass.), wrote in a recent Washington Post op-ed, it’s not clear how much scrutiny these reviews entail.  “Neither Congress nor the public knows anything about the scope of those audits and whether the President can exert undue influence on the IRS to affect his or her tax treatment,” Neal wrote.  “If, for example, the President is already under audit at the time he or she takes office, what happens to that audit?  We don’t know.  My committee will consider legislation regarding the mandatory audit program to ensure these audits are conducted fairly and without undue influence from the commander in chief.  And, as part of our deliberations, we must review his tax information to better understand the audit program and propose any needed changes.”

Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), a senior Democratic member of the committee, says the tax returns could reveal how Trump does business, including if he and his company have employed dubious tax strategies.  “Lying and tax avoidance appear to be a way of life for Trump,” he notes.  “His tax returns could indicate the role tax-dodging plays in Trump’s overall business strategy.  Perhaps this is another reason why Trump and his Republican enablers are so intent on defying the law to keep them hidden.”

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who oversees the IRS, has so far rebuffed the Ways and Means Committee’s efforts to obtain Trump’s returns.  In July, the panel sued the Treasury Department and the IRS to force them to comply.  In a recent court filing, the committee revealed a tantalizing bit of information about its inquiry:  A whistleblower had come forward with “credible allegations of ‘evidence of possible misconduct’—specifically, potential ‘inappropriate efforts to influence’ the mandatory audit program.”

Trump’s finances are currently the subject of multiple inquiries in his home state of New York.  Following the New York Times investigation of the questionable tax schemes employed by Trump and his family, a spokesperson for the New York Department of Taxation and Finance said the agency was “vigorously pursuing all appropriate avenues of investigation.”  New York Attorney General Letitia James has also been scrutinizing the financing of several Trump projects.  This investigation was sparked by Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, who told Congress earlier this year that Trump had inflated his assets on financial statements used to secure loans.  In March, James subpoenaed records from Deutsche Bank concerning multiple Trump ventures, including the Trump Chicago project.  Her office declined to comment on whether it had subpoenaed Fortress or planned to do so in the future, but James tells Mother Jones in a statement:  “My office takes any allegations of significant tax fraud seriously.  No one is above the law—not even the President of the United States.”

TRUMP INC - Profiting on the Presidency

Trump is all about Trump.  He thinks and acts as if he is not bound by the law, a law onto himself.

"Could Trump really host the next G-7 at one of his own properties?" PBS NewsHour 8/27/2019

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  The G-7 summit that just concluded was held in coastal France, but the U.S. will be hosting the next meeting -- and President Trump has suggested his Miami golf resort as a possible venue.  The remark immediately drew questions and concerns from ethics experts about possible overlap between personal profit and politics.  Lisa Desjardins reports and talks to The Washington Post’s David Fahrenthold.

OPINION - Shields and Brooks 5/10/2019

"Shields and Brooks on Trump’s subpoena standoff, China trade war" PBS NewsHour 5/10/2019

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SUMMARY:  Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s political news, including 2020 Democrats on the campaign trail in Iowa, the standoff between Congress and the White House over the Mueller report and subpoenas, President Trump’s trade war with China and escalating tensions with Iran.

Judy Woodruff (NewsHour):  And now to the analysis of Shields and Brooks.  That is syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.

Hello to both of you.

So, before we turn to all the whatever we want to call it that's happened in Washington this week, Mark, let's talk a minute about Iowa.  We heard this voter tell Amna, this is really hard.

I don't know why it's so hard.  There are only 23 candidates.

Mark Shields, syndicated columnist:  That's right.

But that is — Amna captured the Iowa essence.  I mean, these people take their responsibility very seriously.

Judy Woodruff:  They do.

Mark Shields:  It's not casual.  They are gatekeepers.  Between Iowa and New Hampshire, they are 1.4 percent of the population of the country, and unless you finish in the top three in Iowa and the top two in New Hampshire, you will not be elected President of the United States, based on the historical precedent.

And that's why it makes sense for both Mr. Castro and Mr. O'Rourke to be spending time there.

Judy Woodruff:  They get one-on-one time.

David Brooks, New York Times:  Yes.

If you love politics, this is the time go, actually, right now, because there's like crowds of three or eight.  And there are candidates everywhere.  You can drive to — in beautiful weather and see beautiful candidates.

And then it all peaks at the state fair, where they all sort of congregate.  My most profound political coverage moment was covering Gary Bauer, who was running in the Republican primary, as he toured a refrigerated railway car with the Last Supper carved in butter in life size.

And that was politics at its best.

Mark Shields:  Yes.

Judy Woodruff:  That was the state fair.

David Brooks:  That was at the state fair.

Judy Woodruff:  Which is coming up in August.  We have already got it on our calendar here, here at "NewsHour."

Mark Shields:  Raise the cholesterol level of the entire state and press corps.

Judy Woodruff:  All right, so now tear ourselves away from Iowa, Mark, to talk about what's gone on in Washington this week, this escalating battle between the Congress and the White House.

Just today, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee in the House, Richard Neal, is subpoenaing the secretary of the treasury, the head of the IRS, to go after the President's tax returns, this on top of subpoenas for the President's son, subpoenas for the attorney general.

What do we make of all this?

Mark Shields:  Well, I mean, we — I think it's approaching almost situational overload, in terms of — we're talking about subpoenas from committees, including the House Intelligence Committee, the House Banking Committee, the Judiciary Committee, the — across the board.

And now we have the Intelligence Committee in the Senate, as you mentioned, led by Republicans, that have subpoenaed the President's son.

I just think, Judy, that, in a strange way, this plays to Donald Trump's strength.  I mean, Donald Trump lives in chaos.  I think it's sort of almost an emotional and technological and intellectual overload, given the fact that we're on the cusp of war in Iran, in Venezuela, in a showdown with the Chinese.

I mean, there's just — but this is what he thrives on.  And I think there's a — almost I dare you to impeach me attitude that's prevailing.

Judy Woodruff:  Overload, you mean for the American people?

Mark Shields:  For the American people and for the — this isn't — the system wasn't intended for this.

I mean, this isn't the way it's constructed, that we can deal with crisis upon crisis upon crisis.

Judy Woodruff:  David, the Democrats say they're very serious about all this.  They want this information.  They want this testimony.

I mean, are they pursuing the right strategy for them?

David Brooks:  No.

Well, neither side is.  It's the complete breakdown of the checks and balances system.  The President has to say, Congress, I need you.  I need you to oversee what I'm doing.  I need you to correct for my imbalances.  And so I'm going to cooperate with you.

And that's just the normal way we do business.  And the Trump administration is not doing that.  So that's the first crisis.

The second is, if you're going to do oversight, you got to oversee.  You got to try to say, I'm at least going to try to be a productive force here.  But what we're seeing on the side of the Democrats is an escalation of the passion.  And it's just become an attack machine.

And so there's just a lot of — there's a lot of talk now about jailing people.  There's a lot of talk about just holding multiple people in contempt.  This fight over the redaction is the wrong fight to have.

Judy Woodruff:  Of the Mueller report.

David Brooks:  Of the Mueller report.

The administration has offered to show of the volume two, which is about obstruction, the vast majority, 99.5 percent, to least the elite Democrats.  And that wasn't good enough.  And so there was a little negotiation, which broke down.

But, to me, that — just issuing orders of contempt, which may go forward, just freezes everything.  It just pushes everything into the courts, and we sit there and do nothing for a couple of years.  And so there's a way to do this, and there's a way not to do this.

So there's a lot of error on the Trump administration.  But, nonetheless, I think the Democrats across the board and across many committees are sort of walking slowly up toward impeachment.  And we could end up in impeachment.  And I do think that's what Donald Trump…

(CROSSTALK)

Judy Woodruff:  But, Mark, we had on the program last night Jerry Nadler, who is the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee…

Mark Shields:  Yes.

Judy Woodruff:  … who essentially said, if we don't carry out our responsibility, we're not fulfilling what the Constitution, what the founders wanted and expected Congress to do, which is have oversight over the executive.

Mark Shields:  That is a — it's a legitimate argument, make no mistake about it, I mean, that if you lay down a precedent that, literally, that this precedent can — this President gets away with what he's getting away with, and the Congress does nothing, then that certainly lays the precedent for the next President.

I think, just to add to what David — the point David made, Donald Trump, according to USA Today, which has established a database, has been a plaintiff or a defendant in 4,095 lawsuits.  Now, think about that.

I mean, that's an awful lot.

Judy Woodruff:  Over his career.

Mark Shields:  Over his career.

I mean, about employment, about contracts, about subcontractors, you name it.  He'd been — and you talk about litigious.  He enjoys this.  I mean, he thrives on this.  This is modus operandi.

And I really think they're playing to his strength, quite honestly.  And he's — and he's sitting there, quite honestly, Judy, with 91 percent approval among Republicans.  And just, I think, intimidates his own party.

Judy Woodruff:  But, David, are the two of us saying Democrats just drop this?

David Brooks:  No.  No.

Judy Woodruff:  What should the approach be?

David Brooks:  No, they should be in the business of trying to inform the American voters.

And so getting Mueller to testify…

Mark Shields:  Absolutely.

David Brooks:  The fact that Mueller may not testify is outrageous, and Mueller should testify.

Mark Shields:  Yes.  Yes.

David Brooks:  And so they should be in that business.

But, basically, what they're doing is walking up toward the line of impeachment.  And you can see the passions rising, as they get further and further down that line.  And there's a difference between going toward the prosecutorial impeachment, and having hearings to educate the American voter.

And when you get down one path, you're really trying to appease the part of the party that wants — that wants impeachment.  And the problem, when you try to appease that part, you end up emboldening, and you just turn it into an attack game.

And what Donald Trump wants — who would — who does Donald Trump want to be his foil, his opposite member?  Does he want it to be the Presidential candidates, most of whom are kind of attractive, who he is actively running against, or would he rather run against Congress?  Of course he would rather run against Congress [the House].

Any President would.

Judy Woodruff:  But, Mark, I mean, I just — I come back to what the Democrats are saying is, we want this information.  The administration is saying, we're not going to give it to you.

So how does it ever get resolved?

Mark Shields:  No, there's no question that they're playing — they're playing absolutely hardball, is the administration.  And they're being — they're not being respectful of the law in the least.

I think, Judy, you have to make — the difference is, the Russians were involved in this election in 2016, make no mistake about it.  Our intelligence agencies have all concluded that unanimously.  They were around in 2018.  They all got all the way into a county in Florida, into its official site.

Judy Woodruff:  Right.

Mark Shields:  So that is a legitimate area.

What, are we going to have American elections for Americans and not interference?  That — and nobody could argue with that, save Donald Trump.  I mean, his own administration is mindful of that.

Judy Woodruff:  And you're saying that's what they should be talking about, rather than…

Mark Shields:  Yes.  I think that's where they ought to be going.

Judy Woodruff:  Let's turn…

David Brooks:  There is even a weird moment where a senator started acting like a senator, Richard Burr, the Republican from North Carolina…

Mark Shields:  Richard Burr.

David Brooks:  … who wants to bring Don Jr. in to investigate that exact question.  The rest of the Republican Party went crazy because he was acting like an actual senator who wants to get to the bottom of a very serious issue.

Mark Shields:  And, Judy, I would point out that his own colleague in — Thom Tillis in North Carolina, who had written a very straightforward op-ed page piece in The Washington Post opposing Donald Trump's declaration of a national emergency on building the wall, and then caved like a $4 suitcase when Donald Trump objected, went after — went after his own colleague, Richard Burr, and criticized him for leading a bipartisan investigation.

Judy Woodruff:  I'm thinking of a $4 suitcase.

Mark Shields:  OK.

AMERICAN POLITICS - Cohen & Trump's Border Wall

"Trump faces challenges on 2 sides, as House pushes resolution and Cohen testifies" PBS NewsHour 2/26/2019

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SUMMARY:  The House is pushing a resolution to invalidate President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency over illegal immigration.  Meanwhile, Trump faced a challenge from the other side of Capitol Hill as his former attorney Michael Cohen testified in a closed session with the Senate Intelligence Committee.  Lisa Desjardins updates Judy Woodruff on a busy day on Capitol Hill.

"What new information came out of Cohen hearing?" PBS NewsHour 2/27/2019

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SUMMARY:  The testimony of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen in front of the House Oversight Committee produced plenty of material.  Lisa Desjardins, who attended the hearing, and Yamiche Alcindor join Judy Woodruff to discuss the day’s key takeaways, including House Republican and White House attacks on Cohen as not trustworthy and Cohen's argument that Trump ran for President solely to enrich himself.

"Cohen calls Trump ‘a conman’ and ‘a cheat’" PBS NewsHour 2/27/2019

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SUMMARY:  In public testimony before the House Oversight Committee, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen said some of his past offenses were “for the benefit of, at the direction of, and in coordination with” President Trump.  He also called his former boss a conman, racist, and cheat but said he had no "direct evidence" of Trump's campaign colluding with Russia.

"Cohen accuses Trump of inaccurately reporting finances to IRS, banks" PBS NewsHour 2/27/2019

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SUMMARY:  In his congressional testimony on Wednesday, Michael Cohen produced evidence of hush money paid to porn actress Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels, to keep her from revealing an affair with President Trump.  Cohen also accused the President of inflating his financial assets during dealings with banks but under-reporting them to the IRS.  Judy Woodruff talks to Lisa Desjardins for more.

"Why Cohen’s answers on Russia could pose potential legal problems for Trump" PBS NewsHour 2/27/2019

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SUMMARY:  During his appearance before the House Oversight Committee, Michael Cohen was questioned about possible ties between the President and Russia, as well as Trump’s relationship with Roger Stone.  Yamiche Alcindor talks to Judy Woodruff about the significance of the information Cohen relayed and whether any of it could pose a potential legal problem for the President.

"How a former independent counsel analyzes the legal implications of Cohen’s testimony" PBS NewsHour 2/27/2019

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SUMMARY:  Michael Cohen’s testimony raises many questions about President Trump’s personal, political and financial dealings.  For analysis of its potential legal implications, Judy Woodruff turns to Solomon Wisenberg, who was Deputy Independent Counsel during the Whitewater investigation of the early 1990s.

"The ‘stunning’ details Cohen offered about Trump’s business" PBS NewsHour 2/28/2019

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SUMMARY:  During a public hearing before the House Oversight Committee, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen discussed the president’s personal, political and financial affairs.  William Brangham talks to The Washington Post’s David Fahrenthold, and Andrea Bernstein co-host of the podcast "Trump, Inc.," about "startling" details of Trump's business and why Congress might want to talk to Allen Weisselberg.

TRUMP ORGANIZATION - Latest on Flynn/Cohen/Manafort

Trump Nightmare

"What’s in the latest court filings about Cohen, Manafort" PBS NewsHour 12/7/2018

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SUMMARY:  The Mueller team has released new details regarding its interactions with Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, and Michael Cohen.  According to court filings, former Trump lawyer Cohen informed investigators about contact among Russia, the Trump Organization and the Trump campaign, while Manafort lied about four topics, including his contact with the administration.  William Brangham joins Judy Woodruff.

"How the latest Cohen filings could get ‘close to the President’" PBS NewsHour 12/7/2018

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SUMMARY:  Two court filings Friday reveal new information about Michael Cohen.  Judy Woodruff speaks with Jessica Roth, law professor at Yeshiva University and a former federal prosecutor, about the differences between how Mueller and the Southern District of New York characterize Cohen, Russian “synergy” with the Trump campaign and potential overlap between Trump's political and business interests.

TRUMP INC - Financial Vampire

"Following Trump's money exposes the awful truth: Our president is a 'financial vampire'" by David Cay Johnston, Los Angeles Times 11/4/2018

Americans were confronted Tuesday with a profound problem, one that challenges our commitment to accountable democratic government and justice.  It is an awful truth that we must face now that the New York Times has published a richly documented, 14,000-word expose alleging decades of deeply corrupt Trump family finances.

After 18 months of interviewing people who worked for or with the Trump family and scrutinizing more than 100,000 documents, the newspaper painted a portrait “unprecedented in scope and precision” of Trump family money, including “outright fraud” that enriched the man who is now the sitting President.  Those extraordinary words require us to pay close attention.

Leaked financial records reveal decades of calculated tax cheating, according to the New York Times.  Father Fred Trump created 295 revenue streams to transfer money to his children, many of which appear to have broken laws.  A lawyer for the President claims the published allegations are false and the reporting “extremely inaccurate,” but the reporters cite bank statements, canceled checks, invoices and tax filings that reveal the apparent evasion of close to half a billion dollars of taxes in today’s money.

In one scheme the value of properties transferred from Fred Trump to his children was discounted by 94%.  Prices paid for refrigerators and stoves were inflated 46%, which enabled dishonest tax deductions while cheating people in rent-stabilized Trump apartments by justifying higher rents.

Not a scintilla of verifiable evidence shows that Donald is anything like as rich as he claims.

As that paper’s former tax reporter and a journalist who has covered Donald Trump for more than 30 years, this was no surprise.  In 1990 I broke the story that Trump was no billionaire.  He called me a liar for months, until he had to put documents in the public record showing he was worth negative-$295 million.

Not a scintilla of verifiable evidence shows that Donald is anything like as rich as he claims.  Candidate Trump said he was worth more than $10 billion, but his 2017 presidential disclosure statement shows just $1.4 billion.

Yet millions of Americans believe Trump is a modern Midas.  They believe the President will lift them out of hard times, after a half-century during which the super-rich flourished and their incomes were mostly flat.  The awful truth is that the man in the Oval Office is not a wealth-building entrepreneur, but a financial vampire who extracts cash from enterprises, leaving behind unpaid workers, vendors and governments.

The President’s father got his start profiteering, to the tune of millions of dollars, from programs to help returning GIs get housing, which prompted President Eisenhower to throw a fit.  Donald Trump is already a proven tax cheat.  He admitted to sales tax fraud in 1983.  He lost two income tax civil fraud trials.  His own tax lawyer, Jack Mitnick, testified that Trump’s 1984 tax return was fraudulent.

Court records show how Trump and his children misled investors in failed condo projects in Baja California and Florida.  Trump promised strivers who paid tens of thousands of dollars to attend Trump University that he would hand-pick a faculty and give them a better education than the best business schools.  That’s not what happened.  In the end, Trump gave back $25 million after insisting he had done nothing wrong.

A Trump project in New York employed hundreds of workers who were in America without permission, paid them laughably low wages and worked them beyond legal limits.  He denied knowledge of the situation, but a judge said Trump’s testimony was not credible.  Trump promised to show voters that his immigrant third wife, Melania, always worked legally.  Business records show she worked illegally as a model.

Trump’s longtime fixer, Michael Cohen, is talking to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.  So is his former campaign manager, who along with Trump’s first son and son-in-law eagerly embraced the Kremlin’s offer of campaign help.  Trump’s first national security advisor has pleaded guilty to being an unregistered agent for Russian interests in Turkey.  Son-in-law Jared Kushner sought to use Russian diplomatic channels to communicate secretly with Moscow.

For many Americans the truth too horrible to consider is that Donald Trump could be a criminal, a wildly successful con artist.  He may well be disloyal.  For those who grasp what Trump is, the corollary truth is that our Constitution’s checks and balances are failing us.

The Republican majority in Congress refuses to properly investigate Trump.  Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, is rushing a vote on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, whose legal writings indicate he might protect Trump from law enforcement.

Prosecutors, tax authorities, casino regulators and other government officials appear to have let the Trump family get away with dishonest conduct again and again.  Trump has bragged that in return for campaign donations politicians always obeyed his wishes, and it seems many did.

The latest expose focuses mainly on the 1950s through the 1990s.  We need to see Trump’s tax returns, and the books and records behind them, from this century.  And if they show cheating, we need to enforce the laws Trump violated.

David Cay Johnston, a former Los Angeles Times and New York Times reporter, is the author of “The Making of Donald Trump” and “It’s Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America.”

TRUMP INC - Profiting From Presidency?

"So What Trump Investigations Could Be Coming?  — “Trump, Inc.” Podcast Extra" by Andrea Bernstein (WNYC), ProPublica 11/08/2018

The “Trump, Inc.” team sat down with the New Yorker’s Adam Davidson, McClatchy’s Anita Kumar and the Washington Post’s David Fahrenthold to talk about the midterms and how we might learn more about President Donald Trump’s businesses.

For two years, journalists have operated in an environment in which Congress has declined to inquire into key issues surrounding President Donald Trump’s family business:  Is he profiting from his presidency?  Are his friends, family and appointees?  Is Trump violating the Constitution when members of foreign governments make payments to his company by staying at his properties?

Now, with Democrats taking control of the House of Representatives after this week’s midterm elections, that could change.  Already, several high-ranking members are vowing to look into aspects of the relationship between Trump’s business and his administration.

Among them:

• Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass) currently the ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee, says he’ll request Trump’s tax returns from the Treasury Department.

• Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md) the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, says in a statement he’ll “shine a light on … President Trump’s decisions to act in his own financial self-interest rather than the best interests of the American people.”

• Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) current ranking member of the Judiciary Committee is vowing to investigate policies “that enable pervasive corruption to influence decision-making at the highest levels of government.”

• Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif) ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee says in a statement the committee will look at “areas of inquiry the majority ignored or prevented us from investigating.” Democratic committee staff issued a report last spring detailing some of those areas.  Among them: the Trump Organization’s business practices.

What will this all mean?  What do we hope to learn?  And how might this change our understanding of the presidency and his business?  WNYC’s Andrea Bernstein convened an all-star panel to discuss it all: Adam Davidson of the The New Yorker, McClatchy’s White House correspondent Anita Kumar, The Washington Post’s David Fahrenthold and Eric Umansky of ProPublica.  Listen to the episode.

They also helped us to create a must-read list of stories, articles, documents and court filings that take on new interest after the midterms for anyone following the administration.

From Adam:  The House Intelligence Committee’s Minority Views report, which lays out how a Democrat-led committee might continue to investigate possible collusion with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign, and the deposition of Trump Organization CFO Alan Weisselberg in State of New York v. The Donald J. Trump Foundation.

From Andrea:  U.S. District Judge’s Peter J. Messite’s Nov. 2, 2018, Memorandum Opinion in The District of Columbia v. Donald J. Trump, otherwise known as the “emoluments lawsuit.”

From Anita:  Sarah Chayes’ amicus brief in CREW v. Donald J. Trump.

From David:  Trump’s 2007 deposition in the case Donald J. Trump v. Timothy O’Brien.

From Eric:  Axios’ story about a GOP spreadsheet of expected Democratic-led investigations.  It’s a long list that spans everything from well-known issues like Trump’s tax returns to things many of us have long forgotten, such as whether classified information has been inappropriately shared at Mar-a-Lago.

TRUMP THE SCAM ARTIST - The Early Years

"NYT investigation unearths new details about Trump’s early millions" PBS NewsHour 10/2/2018

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  The New York Times has published a special investigation that digs deep into the Trump family finances.  It paints a detailed picture of how the President used potentially illegal tax schemes to acquire millions from his father.  The account contradicts President Trump's long-repeated narrative that he was a self-made man.  Judy Woodruff talks with Susanne Craig, a Times investigative reporter.

TRUMP AGENDA - The 'Made in America' Lie

I hope by now you know that 'rules' do not apply to Trump, according to him.

"Ivanka Trump products are not made in America" PBS NewsHour 7/17/2017

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  It's "Made in America" week at the White House, but President Trump's effort to highlight U.S. manufacturing has sparked questions about where Trump family products are produced.  In fact, merchandise sold by the Trump Organization or sold through Ivanka Trump's fashion line is all made overseas.  John Yang learns more from Matea Gold of The Washington Post.