After three years investigating the former president’s business over its financial dealings, the Manhattan district attorney’s office is expected to file its first charges against the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer on Thursday, according to multiple reports.
US President-elect Donald Trump along with his son Donald, Jr., arrive for a press conference at … [+]
AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
KEY FACTS
People familiar with the matter told both the Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press that Trump’s company and CFO Allen Weisselberg are expected to face charges related to allegedly evading taxes on fringe benefits, including the use of apartments, cars and school tuition.
Trump himself is not expected to be charged with the tax-related crimes, his lawyer has told news outlets.
The defendants may appear in court as early as Thursday afternoon, according to the WSJ.
The Trump organization attempted to fight the impending indictments this week, arguing in virtual meetings with prosecutors that it is highly unusual to charge companies for neglecting to pay taxes on fringe benefits.
Meanwhile, Weisselberg and his lawyers have not publicly commented on the investigating or reportedly imminent indictment, and could not be immediately reached by Forbes for comment.
CRUCIAL QUOTE
“In my more than 50 years of practice, never before have I seen the district attorney’s office target a company over employee compensation or fringe benefits,” Trump’s lawyer Ronald Fischetti said in a statement to the WSJ. “Even the financial institutions responsible for causing the 2008 financial crisis, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, were not prosecuted.”
KEY BACKGROUND
The assessment of whether top executives at the Trump Organization received perks and benefits that were not properly reported on their tax returns is part of a years-long, broad criminal probe into Trump’s business. New York prosecutors have been looking more generally to find whether the Trump Organization and its employees overvalued and undervalued assets for financial gains. This means that the round of indictments that will reportedly filed Thursday may not be the last tied to this probe.
CRUCIAL QUOTE
Trump has repeatedly slammed the investigation as a political witch hunt and released a statement Monday decrying prosecutors as “rude, nasty and totally biased.” “They continue to be ‘in search of a crime’ and will do anything to frighten people into making up the stories or lies that they want, but have been totally unable to get,” the ex-president wrote.
Forbes
