Tuesday open thread: The Rat's accountants abandon him
Well well well.
I was busy working on a project for my boss. Once I finished, I came up for air to see what breaking news I had missed. Apparently, I missed this:
Donald J. Trump’s longtime accounting firm cut ties with his family business last week amid ongoing criminal and civil investigations into whether Mr. Trump illegally inflated the value of his assets, court documents filed on Monday show.
In a letter to the Trump Organization on Feb. 9, the accounting firm notified the company of its decision and disclosed that it could no longer stand behind annual financial statements it prepared for Mr. Trump. The firm, Mazars USA, compiled the financial statements based on information the former president and his company provided.
The letter instructed the Trump Organization to essentially retract the documents, known as statements of financial condition, from 2011 to 2020. In the letter, Mazars noted that the firm had not “as a whole” found material discrepancies between the information the Trump Organization provided and the actual value of Mr. Trump’s assets. But given what it called “the totality of circumstances,” the letter directed the Trump Organization to notify anyone who received the statements that they should no longer rely on them.
Oh mercy mercy me. Here's the letter Mazars sent to to Alan Garten, a Trump Organization official:
AG James’ office has submitted a court filing Re Trump case that includes a letter from his company’s accounting firm saying nearly a decade worth of financial statements can no longer be relied upon. pic.twitter.com/sDUcDF1BEd
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) February 14, 2022
In a nutshell, Mazars is telling both Trump and New York Attorney General Tish James that they performed the work for Trump in good faith, and have concluded that all of his financial statements were based on lies. It's letting James know that they had nothing to do with the lies, and will cooperate with her investigation fully.
There will still be people saying Trump will get away with it. These people, frankly, are tiresome. Yes, of course, there's always that possibility. But right now, the probability is that Trump is screwed from a few different directions. He's been cut off by his banks. Now his accounting firm has basically called him a financial criminal. He's facing prosecution from Manhattan and Fulton County. The January 6th Committee is building what would be a criminal case against him. And lord knows what cases the Department of Justice—which isn't leaking, much to the frustration of many of us—is building, especially concerning him taking classified documents with him as he scurried out of the West Wing.
Trump's life is over. Forget any fanciful tales of him running in 2024. He and his demon-spawn will be too busy either fending off imprisonment, or already will be in prison.
Only morons like Steve Bannon are willing to go to prison for Trump. Even Rudy Giuliani is said to be negotiating an agreement to testify before the committee. Trump burns everyone around him. It's not a surprise that 98% of them will throw him over the railing to save themselves.
Happy Tuesday, everyone. We've got this.