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  • Special monitor suggests Trump falsified disclosures over $48 million loan in what could be tax evasion, report says

    Special monitor suggests Trump falsified disclosures over $48 million loan in what could be tax evasion, report says

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    • A court-appointed monitor in Trump’s fraud case said his company filed disclosures with “errors.”

    • Tucked in a footnote is also an indication he may have committed tax fraud, per The Daily Beast.

    • The letter indicates Trump may have lied about the existence of a $48 million loan.

    Tucked into a footnote in a letter written by former federal judge Barbara Jones, the court-appointed special monitor overseeing Donald Trump’s New York business fraud case is a bombshell that appears to indicate the former president may have engaged in massive tax evasion, according to a new report released by The Daily Beast.

    The letter, first reported by The Messenger, was delivered Friday to update Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron on Jones’ findings while reviewing the former president’s business dealings through his company, the Trump Organization.

    In it, Jones writes that the financial information filed to her by Trump’s team has contained “incomplete” or “inconsistent” disclosures containing multiple “errors.” However, she describes Trump and his businesses as “cooperative” with her investigation.

    But buried in the sixth footnote of the 12-page letter is what the Daily Beast indicated is a clue that Trump may have evaded taxes on $48 million in income, with Jones writing that the massive sum — which Trump has claimed for years that he owes as a debt to one of his companies — never existed.

    “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.

    She added: “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 MAML,” Jones wrote, referring to corporate financial statements filed by the company.

    Jones and Trump Organization attorney Alan Garten did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

    A ‘pretty brazen’ plot

    Garten told The Daily Beast an “internal loan” wherein Trump “leant money to the entity that he owns” does exist.

    “That’s one of many inaccuracies contained in the monitor’s letter, which we will be addressing with the court,” Garten told the outlet.

    However, per the Daily Beast, as recently as October, Trump has claimed in financial disclosures that he owes the sum to his company, Chicago Unit Acquisition LLC, listing his debt as more than $50 million.

    The discrepancies, if true, would indicate that the disclosures Trump has filed with the federal government were intentionally submitted with inaccuracies related to the debt equating to tens of millions of dollars. “It would appear, assuming Judge Jones’ letter is accurate, that this amounts to tax evasion,” Martin Lobel, a tax lawyer, told The Daily Beast.

    He added: “This explains why the Republicans have been so intent on cutting the IRS’s budget, because they don’t want it to be able to audit transactions like this.”

    The $48 million central to this issue has been scrutinized before. In 2016, the then-candidate for president told The New York Times that he purchased an outstanding loan from several banks he owed money to and, instead of retiring it, chose to keep the debt outstanding and pay interest on it to himself.

    However, in 2019, Mother Jones reported a significant portion of Trump’s debt was forgiven by the hedge fund he owed money to after he paid about half of it.

    So, instead of paying income taxes of up to 39% on the forgiven debt, the outlet reported, Trump “invented a loan — and then parked it.” Debt parking is the process of purchasing debt using a corporation to avoid paying income taxes on it. The maneuver is legal as long as the borrower intends to repay the loan but is illegal to engage in indefinitely.

    Adam Levitin, a Georgetown University law professor specializing in commercial real estate finance, told Mother Jones at the time that the plot was “pretty brazen,” adding: “if he didn’t actually buy the loan, this is just garden-variety fraud.”

    “While the reasons behind claiming this fake loan are still unknown, at the very least he misled the government for years about his finances,” Jordan Libowitz, communications director at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told The Daily Beast. “It appears that Trump knowingly and intentionally broke the law. The only question is how many laws.”

    Read the original article on Business Insider

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  • (Media News) Mother Jones and Center for Investigative Reporting Announce Merger

    (Media News) Mother Jones and Center for Investigative Reporting Announce Merger

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    Mother Jones and the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) announced their merger into a single nonprofit news outlet, set to be finalized by February 1 of the following year. This merger aims to pool the strengths of both organizations and expand their reach. Mother Jones is known for its progressive magazine and website, while CIR is recognized for its “Reveal” podcast and radio show. Both organizations, based in San Francisco, have collaborated since their inception in the 1970s.

    The decision for the merger emerged from discussions about challenges in the journalism industry, particularly funding pressures. CIR, having faced tumultuous times with multiple rounds of layoffs and high leadership turnover, viewed the merger as an opportunity for a more sustainable and diverse revenue stream. According to CIR CEO Robert J. Rosenthal, the merger was seen as a chance to leverage Mother Jones’ more diverse and sophisticated “infrastructure of sustainability.”

    The merger will combine Mother Jones’ 50,000 donors with CIR’s foundation support, diversifying its revenue model. Together, they have already raised $21 million over three years to fund the merger. Post-merger, Mother Jones magazine, and website, as well as the Reveal podcast, will continue operations. Monika Bauerlein, CEO of Mother Jones, will maintain her role, while Rosenthal will become CEO emeritus. The combined newsroom will be led by Clara Jeffery and will consist of 73 journalists. The merger will result in four administrative layoffs due to redundancies, bringing the total headcount to 118 people.

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  • Several Of George Santos Campaign Contributors Don’t Appear To Exist: Report

    Several Of George Santos Campaign Contributors Don’t Appear To Exist: Report

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    For more than a dozen contributors listed as having donated significant amounts of money to the campaign of Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), the finance documents could not be confirmed, Mother Jones discovered in an investigation of the records.

    Donors identified as Victoria and Jonathan Regor, for example, purportedly each contributed the maximum amount allowed — $2,800 — for Santos’s first bid for a House seat in New York in 2020, which he lost, the magazine noted.

    Despite a search of databases, no one named Victoria or Jonathan Regor could be located anywhere in the U.S., Mother Jones reported Friday. Additionally, the outlet added that their listed address — 45 New Mexico Street, Jackson Township, New Jersey — does not exist.

    Santos’ 2020 campaign finance reports also list a “Stephen Berger” at an address on Brandt Road in Brawley, California, donating $2,500. But a spokesperson for rancher and Republican donor William Brandt told Mother Jones he has lived at the Brandt Road address for at least 20 years and “neither he or his wife have made any donations to George Santos.” Brandt has no idea who “Stephen Berger” might be.

    Separately, the documents point to another $2,800 campaign donation attributed to a friend of Santos who denied to Mother Jones that he contributed.

    Such “questionable donations” account for more than $30,000 of the $338,000 the Santos campaign raised from individual donors in 2020, according to the magazine.

    Santos’ campaign documents are beginning to appear as fib-riddled as the lawmaker’s stories about his life. He has lied about his heritage, family, education, and work experience. Yet Santos has ignored calls for his resignation and has claimed he merely “embellished” his résumé.

    Amendments this week to finance forms for his latest campaign indicate that a $700,000 donation to his latest campaign in Long Island that the lawmaker had claimed was a loan from him did not come from Santos after all. That leaves a significant mystery about the source of the funds.

    Santos had said he made $55,000 a year before launching the Devolder Organization in 2021. However, the funding for starting up the mysterious company — which had no website and was dissolved shortly after it was launched — is murky.

    He claimed that the company, suddenly allegedly worth millions, rocketed his salary to $750,000. That supposedly helped him finance his campaign — which has now been contradicted by the changes to the campaign finance filing. On Wednesday, an agitated Santos insisted to reporters he wasn’t personally involved in amending the campaign finance reports.

    Santos’ campaign committee also told federal regulators on Wednesday that it had hired a new treasurer — but the man it named said he had not accepted the job.

    The Washington Post reported Friday that the Department of Justice had told the Federal Election Commission to hold off on any civil enforcement action regarding possible Santos campaign violations. It’s the clearest signal yet that the Justice Department has already launched its own criminal investigation into Santos’ campaign finances, the Post noted.

    Santos could not be reached for comment.

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