HUNT 10 YEARS OF DON DOUGH
Dems want records, eye weird wobbles & cry GOP sabotage
House Democrats revealed Wednesday that they are seeking 10 years worth of President Trump’s personal financial information — and charged Republicans are actively encouraging Trump’s accountants not to comply with requests for information.
Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee want 10 years worth of Trump’s personal financial info from the firm Mazars USA LLP and its predecessors.
They sought the records in a letter sent last week after recent testimony by Trump’s former attorney, Michael Cohen.
The lawyer, who has been convicted of perjury for lying to protect the president, claimed Trump regularly inflated assets to secure loans and insurance or downplayed them for tax purposes.
In one case of self-worth inflation, Trump hoped to purchase the Buffalo Bills.
According to a statement Democrats released Wednesday after Republicans wrote their own letter in protest, the GOP members of the committee instructed a Mazars official to spurn the Dem probe.
“I suppose it is no longer a surprise that Republicans on the Oversight Committee are now opposed to oversight itself — especially since a Republican entered the White House,” said committee Chairman Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.). “If they had their way, the committee would just close up shop for the next two years.”
The request for Mazars documents notes that Cohen gave the committee financial data from 2011, 2012 and 2013. Cummings (inset) said the committee is just doing its duty in following up.
But in the protest letter Republicans sent, they accuse Cummings and Democrats of seeking dirt to “embarrass President Trump and to advance the relentless Democratic attacks on the Trump administration.”
While such sparring between the parties on the Oversight Committee is not uncommon in recent years, the new spat leaves little doubt that Democrats will continue scrutinizing Trump after the end of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in his election.
Cummings singled out several irregularities in the financial data Cohen handed over. In one case, Trump’s worth shot up by $4.2 billion in nine months simply by adding a single line-item labeled “Brand Value.” In another case, Trump’s statement leaves out assets, liabilities and guarantees related to Trump properties in Las Vegas and Chicago.
In another case, in one year Trump estimated the “goodwill attached to the Trump name” was worth $110 million in 2011, but only $85 million a year later. In still another, it’s unclear what happened to a nearly $20 million debt on the Trump World Tower at United Nations Plaza after the creditor, Daewoo, dissolved in a corruption probe.
A Mazars spokeswoman would not comment about Trump’s money info, but said they’re an upright company.
“Mazars believes strongly in the ethical and professional rules and regulations that govern our industry, our work and our client interactions. As a matter of firm policy and professional rules we do not comment on the work we conduct for our clients,” the spokeswoman said.