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☆ Notable legal clouds that continue to hang over Donald Trump in 2023
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-20 | by ( Dan Berman | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +15 min

Trump has denied having an affair with Daniels and says the probe by Bragg, a Democrat, is politically motivated. According to the lawsuit, the Trump Organization deceived lenders, insurers and tax authorities by inflating the value of his properties using misleading appraisals. A federal judge ruled that Trump and FBI Director Christopher Wray can be deposed for two hours each as part of the lawsuit. “What (Trump’s lawsuit) lacks in substance and legal support it seeks to substitute with length, hyperbole, and the settling of scores and grievances,” US District Judge Donald Middlebrooks wrote. Woodward later released “The Trump Tapes,” an audiobook featuring eight hours of raw interviews with Trump interspersed with the author’s commentary.

☆ Live updates of Trump grand jury: Expected indictment in payoff to porn star Stormy Daniels
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-20 | by ( Dan Mangan | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

President Donald Trump looks on as Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin speaks at a signing ceremony at the Treasury Department in Washington, U.S., April 21, 2017. The eyes of the U.S. political and legal worlds are focused on New York City, where a grand jury is resuming proceedings in a criminal investigation of former U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump over the weekend said he expects to be indicted, as soon as Tuesday, by the grand jury over a hush money payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before Election Day in the 2016 presidential campaign. Cohen has admitted to giving Daniels $130,000 to keep her quiet about her claims of having had sex with Trump on one occasion years before the election. The investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office is eyeing how Trump's company, the Trump Organization, classified the payment and reimbursement to Cohen as legal expenses.

[1/2] Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Commerce, Georgia, U.S. March 26, 2022. Trump's company faces only a maximum $1.6 million penalty, but has said it plans to appeal. Bragg and James are Democrats, as is Bragg's predecessor Cyrus Vance, who brought the criminal case. "The whole narrative that Donald Trump was blissfully ignorant is just not real," Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass told jurors in his closing argument. State law limits the penalties that Justice Merchan can impose on Trump's company.

☆ Trump Organization hit with $1.6 million fine for criminal tax fraud scheme
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-13 | by ( Kevin Breuninger | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

One of those executives was former Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg, who pleaded guilty to tax fraud charges last summer and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors against his longtime employer. The Trump Corp. and The Trump Payroll Corp., two subsidiaries of the Trump Organization, were both sentenced to the maximum possible fines under New York laws. The Trump Organization has denied all wrongdoing and is planning to appeal the verdict. The Trump Organization, former President Donald Trump 's business empire, was hit with a $1.6 million fine Friday for tax fraud and other crimes committed as part of a yearslong scheme to help some of its top executives avoid paying taxes on compensation. Prosecutors and Trump Organization lawyers gather at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse for the sentencing hearing in New York City, U.S. January 13, 2023.

CNN —A Manhattan criminal court judge held entities of the Trump Organization in criminal contempt for not complying with multiple grand jury subpoenas dating as far back as October 2020 and three court orders mandating they produce the requested evidence ahead of their recent tax fraud trial. Judge Juan Merchan’s order requiring that the Trump Org. Merchan ruled at the end of the Trump Org. The Trump companies did produce thousands of pages of documents in the discovery process, the order said, but still failed to fulfill key requests from prosecutors despite the court orders. Lawyers for the Trump companies claimed they were noncompliant in 2021 because the subpoenas were vague and the time frame to respond was “unreasonably short given the scope and breadth of the demands,” according to the court order.

The jury is set to begin deliberations Monday in the tax fraud trial of the Trump Organization, which is accused of a sweeping, 15-year scheme to compensate top executives of former President Donald Trump’s company off the books. The 15-count indictment charges the company and longtime CFO Allen Weisselberg with scheming to defraud, tax fraud and falsifying records. Trump Organization lawyers outlined their case that the prosecution’s star witness in the criminal trial, Weisselberg, committed his crimes to benefit himself. Other executives were compensated with similar perks, they said, and were paid bonuses as independent contractors, saving the company payroll taxes. “Donald Trump is explicitly sanctioning tax fraud.

Prosecutors in the Trump Organization tax fraud trial said in their closing arguments Friday that the former president sanctioned what became a sweeping 15-year scheme to compensate top company executives off the books. “Donald Trump is explicitly sanctioning tax fraud. “This whole narrative that Donald Trump is blissfully ignorant is just not real.”Attorneys for the defense objected to the late-trial move by the prosecution, which also mentioned Trump at the beginning of closing arguments on Thursday. The 15-count indictment in the case charges the company and longtime CFO Allen Weisselberg with scheming to defraud, tax fraud and falsifying records. Donald Trump stands next to Allen Weisselberg at a news conference in the lobby of Trump Tower on Jan. 11, 2017.

☆ Trump Org defense closings feature a clueless Donald Trump and a big little loophole
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( Laura Italiano | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

"Donald Trump was running a multi-billion-dollar corporate entity," one lawyer, Susan Necheles, told jurors of the Trump Organization's far-too-busy-for-fraud owner. But Weisselberg, she told jurors, hid his self-serving crimes from the Trumps, a family he'd worked for for more than 30 years. "You saw him on the witness stand almost crying" over betraying the Trump family, Necheles told jurors of the former finance chief, repeating for emphasis, "He was ashamed." "I ask you to remember that language," Necheles told the jury, reading it aloud. "The prosecution has been trying to convince you that Mr. Weisselberg's actions were done 'in behalf of' the company," Necheles said.

Weisselberg, the Trump Organization's former chief financial officer, spoke about the savings during testimony as the prosecution's star witness. Weisselberg pleaded guilty in August to avoiding taxes on $1.76 million in income and helping engineer tax fraud. He said if the Trump Organization gave him a raise to cover those expenses, it would have cost the company twice as much to account for his resulting taxes. They have also sought to blame Mazars, which for many years prepared Trump Organization tax returns. The trial's first witness, Trump Organization controller Jeffrey McConney, testified that he did not know whether executives' rent payments were taxable income.

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