Say it ain’t so!
Always read the footnotes.
That’s where former federal judge Barbara Jones, the court-appointed special monitor in Donald Trump’s New York business fraud case, just planted a financial bombshell that legal experts say suggests Trump lied knowingly and repeatedly on his federal financial disclosures about a major loan that never existed—and may have evaded taxes on $48 million in income.
The detail came in a letter Jones filed on Friday to update New York Judge Arthur F. Engoron, first reported by The Messenger, on her efforts to get a full and clear accounting of the Trump Organization’s assets. The letter claims, yet again, that Trump and his company have filed statements containing inconsistencies and errors, but have been “cooperative” in the review process.
But Jones tucked a major revelation into footnote 6, writing that a massive chunk of debt Trump has claimed to owe one of his own companies for years apparently does not exist, and never did.
“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, referencing the name of Trump’s LLC that held his debt.
“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],” Jones wrote.
If true, that would essentially be an admission from the Trump Organization that all the financial disclosures Trump has filed with the federal government listed an entirely fictional debt worth tens of millions of dollars, which Trump claimed he personally owed to one of his own companies.
Asked to comment on Jones’ letter, Alan Garten, chief legal counsel for the Trump Organization, told The Daily Beast that her claim—that the company confessed to the loan never existing—was inaccurate and the loan did in fact exist.
“That’s one of many inaccuracies contained in the monitor’s letter, which we will be addressing with the court,” Garten said in a phone interview.
Moreover—in contradiction to the ex-president’s own statements about the mystery loan—Garten repeatedly insisted that the LLC actually owed the money to Trump. Asked to confirm the loan, Garten replied, “Yes, the loan existed,” specifying that it was “an internal loan” where Trump “leant money to the entity that he owns.”
Yet all of Trump’s financial disclosures, including his most recent amended version approved by the OGE last October, clearly state that it was Trump who owed Chicago Unit Acquisition LLC. He’s consistently listed his debt as more than $50 million, in the form of what’s known as “springing loan”—a loan with unfavorable terms to the borrower.
In fact, Trump confirmed this arrangement himself. In a 2016 interview with The New York Times, Trump claimed that he bought back this loan from “a group of banks several years ago.” Trump said that he’d chosen to keep the debt on his books, the Times reported, claiming that he pays interest on it to himself—despite the LLC’s “practically worthless” valuation.
“We don’t assess any value to it because we don’t care,” Trump said in the interview. “I have the mortgage. That is all there is. Very simple. I am the bank.”
The Daily Beast sent Jones an email asking if she would like to respond to Garten’s claims, but she did not immediately reply.
Jordan Libowitz, communications director at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said that, assuming the court filing is accurate, Trump would appear to have intentionally and repeatedly broken the law.
Sure looks that way. But we all know it’s just another witch hunt. The Deep State planted all that. He never said any such thing. Right MAGA?
The good news is that Hunter Biden is being prosecuted for paying his taxes (including all penalties) three years late. He could go to jail for 18 years. So it’s not like the Deep State is ignoring tax crimes. They have to make an example of somebody.