According to a court-appointed monitor overseeing former President Donald Trump’s New York fraud case, parts of the former president’s financial disclosure appears to be either incomplete or inconsistent.
Former federal judge Barbara Jones stated that while President Trump’s businesses were cooperative with her investigation, some of the disclosed information contained errors.
“I have identified certain deficiencies in the financial information that I have reviewed, including disclosures that are either incomplete, present results inconsistently, and/or contain errors,” she wrote in a 12-page letter, adding that “information required to be submitted to me pursuant to the terms of the monitorship order and review protocol has, at times, been lacking in completeness and timeliness.”
“While the Trump Organization did not enter into any material loans, make significant purchases of real property, or submit evaluations of its properties during the course of the Monitorship, it submitted numerous financial statements, financial reports and related information to third parties,” the letter states.
Ms. Jones was appointed monitor in November 2022 by Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, who is also overseeing the case against the 45th president. In September, Justice Engoron ruled that President Trump’s New York businesses be dissolved, following allegations of false inflation of assets, which the judge deemed as persistent fraud.
Ms. Jones also served as a monitor in criminal investigations against former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Trump attorney Michael Cohen.
The case was initially brought forward by New York State Attorney General Letitia James, who sued President Trump, along with three of his adult children and two of his business associates.
The accusations against the former president state that he inflated the value of his assets by several billion dollars over the course of a decade.
Ms. James claimed that the former president’s alleged intransigence in presence of a monitor should warrant even heftier penalties, including a fine of almost $400 million, as well as a permanent ban from New York’s real estate industry.
However, Ms. Jones did not directly accuse President Trump of fraudulent actions, saying that although changes were made by the former president’s businesses under her scrutiny, more needed to be done.
“While I am to receive advance notice of restructuring or sales, my appointment does not require or permit advanced approval of the Trump Organization’s preparation or submission of financial information to third parties. Thus, I am not in a position to conclude whether fraudulent activity occurred,” the letter continued.
“Absent steps to address the items above, my observations suggest misstatements and errors may continue to occur, which could result in incorrect or inaccurate reporting of financial information to third parties,” it added.
Several media outlets, including the Daily Beast, have suggested that the former president engaged in tax evasion, based on statements made in the sixth footnote of Jones’s letter, which indicated that President Trump may have evaded taxes on almost $50 million in income.
The former president has previously stated, however, that he owed the sum as a debt to one of his companies, although Jones wrote in her letter that the debt never existed.
“When I inquired about this loan, I was informed that there are no loan agreements that memorialize the loan, but that it was a loan that was believed to be between Donald J. Trump, individually, and Chicago Unit Acquisition for $48 million,” Jones wrote, referring to the name of President Trump’s LLC.
“However, in recent discussions with the Trump Organization, it indicated that it has determined that this loan never existed — and thus that it would be removed from any upcoming forms submitted to the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) and would also be removed from subsequent versions of [corporate financial statements],” she added.
According to Trump Organization attorney Alan Garten, however, an internal loan wherein President Trump lent money to the enterprise that he owns does exist.
NTD has contacted Mr. Garten and Barbara Jones for further information but has not yet received a response.
