Trump Organization guilty of criminal tax fraud
What happened
Donald Trump’s family company was convicted this week of criminal tax fraud and a range of related crimes, including falsifying business records. Two Trump Organization entities, the Trump Corporation and the Trump Payroll Corp., were found to have evaded taxes by giving top executives off-the-books perks in place of higher salaries. The benefits ranged from private school tuition for relatives to luxury apartments and leased Mercedes-Benzes. It took a jury in New York’s state supreme court just one day of deliberation to convict on all 17 counts of financial crimes. The organization’s longtime chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, provided key testimony after previously pleading guilty to tax fraud, grand larceny, and conspiracy. The company’s comptroller, Jeffrey McConney, also received immunity for his testimony. The two described how they helped the organization cheat federal and state tax authorities for 15 years starting in 2005. The company now faces a penalty of $1.6 million.
While the witnesses refused to implicate Trump directly— Weisselberg said the fraud was “due to my greed”—prosecutors repeatedly named the former president, arguing that he approved the scheme and personally funded some of the perks. He was “explicitly sanctioning tax fraud,” said prosecutor Joshua Steinglass, showing Trump’s signature on a document in which an executive requested a lower salary. “This was a case about greed and cheating,” said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. “In Manhattan, no corporation is above the law.”
What the columnists said
“There is no way that Trump the man didn’t know what was happening at Trump the organization,” said the New York Daily News in an editorial. But he’s not the one going to jail, and the financial penalty won’t hurt the Trump Organization at all. The DA “needs to keep the lying, cheating, crooked ex-president in his sights” and bring further charges.
The convictions this week were relatively minor, but they are still felonies, said David Smith in The Guardian, and they’ll hurt the Trump Organization’s ability to get loans and legal assistance. What’s more, they “strike at the heart of Trump’s identity as a wealthy businessman who wrote the best-selling book The Art of the Deal.” In 2016, he won the presidency by promising to bring his business acumen to government. “And in a sense, he did: with fraud, deceit, and contempt for the rule of law.”
Thanks to “hyperpolitical state prosecutors,” the Democrats and the media can now use the word “felonious” to describe Trump’s business, said Andrew McCarthy in National Review. It’s not quite fair—lots of companies get away with similar tax dodges—but it is damaging. And Trump now faces “a daunting array of other legal problems,” including criminal investigations into his handling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Republicans need to face the fact that Trump “cannot win a national election.” Rather than nominate him in 2024, it’s time for them to “move on.”