Court monitor Barbara Jones sent her letter to Justice Engoron, who will determine whether to ban Trump from New York real estate for life

The court-appointed monitor overseeing Donald Trump’s businesses told a judge on Friday that the former president’s financial information has contained “incomplete” or “inconsistent” disclosures containing “errors.”

“I have identified certain deficiencies in the financial information that I have reviewed, including disclosures that are either incomplete, present results inconsistently, and/or contain errors,” former federal judge Barbara Jones, tasked with scrutinizing the former president’s business empire, wrote in a 12-page letter.

Though she described Trump and his businesses as “cooperative” with her investigation, Jones added that “information required to be submitted to me pursuant to the terms of the monitorship order and review protocol has, at times, been lacking in completeness and timeliness.”

  • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I’m just gonna say it, I think theres a fat chance 65% of businesses in America are run like this dude does it. The one I work for is. Its why they worship him.

    • blargerer@kbin.social
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      9 months ago

      Either fat chance means the opposite of what you think it means, or I don’t understand your post.

        • TH1NKTHRICE@lemmy.ca
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          9 months ago

          Too bad they failed to include a double/triple negative to really hammer down the confusion.

        • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          65% is more than half. Thats massive if more than half of all business in the US are being run illegitimately.

            • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              I find it more useful in determining why people support the current right-wing political climate in the US. Not as a way for determining the number of corrupt businesses. If you see some business mogul, all the way down to the lowly millionaires, and they absolutely love Trump, chances are they are involved in shady business practices.

              • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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                9 months ago

                I beat this drum a lot, but I gotta point out that a “millionaire” is a couple with a $300k house you’re still paying for, $350k in retirement savings each, 2 paid off cars and kids in public schools. They’re worth a million, but they aren’t the ones dodging taxes, engaging in shitty business practices, and not necessarily voting for trump.

                Because that’s us and a bunch of people I know. We’re 10%-ers and I can tell you that being a millionaire is solid AF middle class.

                And that’s completely fucked up. You shouldn’t have to be in the top 10% to have a “normal” life. Oh, and fuck trump. They throw “shady” people in my league in jail or fine the shit out of them if they get caught. The real rich fuckers get away with everything. They just pay lawyers instead of fines.

                • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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                  9 months ago

                  My bad, you’re right I meant multimillionaire. People that own multiple properties and do everything they can to keep the most profit. People that lock down businesses as boards while still mingling in operations to ensure their will stays imposed. Enough is never enough for them.

      • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Sorry I meant like fat. Like the chance is big. My language meter is forever broken.

    • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      My GF’s boss to her when she said she didn’t want to be in a managerial position for their company:

      “I guess you don’t have the entrepreneurial spirit!”

      Meanwhile they’re paying salaries using money from equipment subventions and using money from said subventions as proof that they have liquidity to get more subventions… They don’t hire labourers because it’s cheaper to use technicians for which they get 85% of the wage back (subventions again) and make them work as labourers…

      • SoylentBlake@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        To my understanding having an entrepreneurial spirit (literally means the mind for enterprise) would mean yr girl would be leaving to start her own company, not sticking around someone else’s.

        Maybe dumbfucko grant cheat she calls a boss meant ambitious. Ambitious like, y’know, Janel Grant, right?

        • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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          9 months ago

          My original message lacked some context, she’s basically left on her own to expand the business in a new direction when she was originally hired to do research and offer the new services to the clients. So she doesn’t care that she doesn’t have the entrepreneurial spirit because her goal isn’t to run or start a business (even though she was self employed and making good money just two years ago), but being told that by her two bosses that clearly can’t run a business by following any type of rules and that have had to skip paycheques in the past (before her time)? That’s insulting as fuck.

    • OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      Real estate is notoriously like this, it’s basically all rich guys doing minor crimes daily. And the occasional major crime.

  • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
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    9 months ago

    So this monitor, she can’t come to a conclusion about whether fraud occurred, although there were persistent errors in financial disclosure of the Trump businesses, but if she can’t come to a conclusion, what is the function of the monitor in the first place?

    And why is the judge taking her information into consideration if she can’t come to him decision either way?

    • Blueberrydreamer@lemmynsfw.com
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      9 months ago

      My understanding is that the monitor’s job is to report information to the judge, not make decisions for them. Offering up her own accusations of fraud could easily be overstepping her position.

      • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
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        9 months ago

        Oh, she goes so out of her way to talk about the ongoing fraud in the Trump organizations but can’t arrive at a definite decision that I assumed it was part of her role to come to a decision.

        • SPRUNT@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Think if it as an equivalent to “I’m not a lawyer, but…”. or when an x-ray technician says “I’m not a doctor, but…”

          She has no legal authority to make a final decision, only to relay the facts of her investigation. If she were to say “TFG is guilty”, it would open an avenue for Orange Hitler to contest something on legal grounds for improper process or some other such nonsense.

          Given the unprecedented (starting to hate that word) scope of everything surrounding the fake-tan meatsack, “Cover Your Ass” is the name of the game for the prosecution.

    • danl@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Reads to me that, in most of the cases, she doesn’t see the final documents provided to 3rd parties. She can ask Trump org for what they provided and if they don’t hand it over, the court could presumably subpoena them.

      For most of the instances she references though, she pointed out issues, Trump org said they’d fix them, but her scope doesn’t include asking the banks if they finally got the corrected version or not.

      Given the scale of inaccuracies and errors though (such as not including $1.6M in management fees in a line item called “Management Fees…” and not including any depreciation for golf courses), it certainly smells like the court would at least want to dig deeper.

  • Drusas@kbin.social
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    9 months ago

    I think the real news here is that there is such a thing as a “court monitor” and most Americans are never told about it. We could sure use an overhaul of our education system, especially once you get into high school. Also of our judicial system, but that’s a bit of another topic.

    • troglodytis@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      When you’re a kid, your education is the responsibility of the adults around you. When you’re an adult with a little box in your hand that can tell you almost everything humans know, your education is your responsibility.

      Court monitors aren’t a secret, maybe just something you hadn’t learned about yet. There is SO much information, you can’t know it all and almost everybody won’t remember a bunch of info they’ve been exposed to.

      We are all ignorant of most of the information humans have gathered, but you can change your level of ignorance on most any topic anytime you’d like. That’s the best part of right now, if you ask me.

      • GladiusB@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Courts in general have A LOT of procedures that are not taught about in school. Hell I took a business law class in college and I know more about how they operate by a divorce. There are many little nuances that aren’t in TV court cases or that are specialized to finances or probate or many other law categories.

    • Starbuck@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I’m going to stand up for the American education system, which is weird. But there is no way to expect someone to learn everything they need to know about all the normal topics and fringe legal systems by the time you’re 18. We already tacked a bunch of math on because Harvard decided everyone needed to know geometry and things spiraled out of control from there with math.

      The fact that the court system can assign your company a monitor while you are being accused of fraud isn’t that crazy, but it’s also pretty specific. Most people don’t know about because they aren’t lawyers and that’s frankly okay.