Albany Times Union (Sunday)

Trump’s empire beginning to unravel

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Never mind those 10 years of Donald Trump’s financial statements, says the longtime accountant to the former president and past, present and future chiseler. The documents purporting to show Trump’s great wealth are, according to the firm which prepared them, worthless.

“You’re fired!,” the phrase which gave our local low-rent real-estate-man-cum-hustler a false national reputation as a business genius has now been used on Trump by Mazars. The New York branch of the internatio­nal accountanc­y agency has disavowed the materials they prepared for Trump covering the time from July 1, 2010, through June 30, 2020.

We know all this because state Attorney General Letitia James, in pursuing a civil case against the Trump Organizati­on and trying to convince the judge to order the testimony of Donald, Don Jr. and Ivanka, submitted Mazars’ Feb. 9 kissoff letter to Trump to the court docket — and public view. It would be really nice if the public also got to see the suspect records that Mazars has repudiated, particular­ly Trump’s secret tax returns. James must have them, as does Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, since Trump lost his effort before the U.S. Supreme Court to withhold the files. The financial documents could be evidence, which would all come out in a future legal action.

Trump has spent decades running from the law, as taught to him by the detestable Roy Cohn, and he’s wriggled out of consequenc­es many times before. But the law is patient. It will catch up with him. James and Bragg have the evidence and the tools.

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