Monday, March 18, 2024

QOTD: "Criminal Intent" In Trump's Tax Fraud




Biographer of the Malignant Loser and expert on his tax and financial history David Cay Johnston appeared on MSNBC to discuss the enormous debt Trump incurred to pay his civil penalties, and the national security dangers of being beholden to foreign debt holders. He also discussed the Malignant Loser's obvious tax fraud (starting at the video's 3:45 mark) and the justification in bringing a case against him:

"There's statutes of limitations for criminal prosecution of taxes, but one of the things we know from the Donald Trump returns we finally got, is he created 60 fictitious businesses, took tax deductions for a number of them that reduced his overall tax bill, even though they had no revenue, and in other cases the revenue and expense matched to the dollar, which I have never seen in 50 years of writing about taxes, and in 1984, Donald Trump did the same thing. He claimed over $600,000 of deductions for a business that had no revenue, no invoices, no records of existence, and was tried twice for income tax fraud, civil, not criminal. Both judges found against him, and his own tax lawyer Jack Mitnick testified against him for forgery saying he put his signature on it when he didn't prepare it.

Since he has done this again, more than 60 times, I have argued either Alvin Bragg or the U.S. government should bring a case against him for tax fraud, proving he created fictitious businesses would be easy, and he was on notice not to do this, a clear indication of criminal intent." (our emphasis)

Unfortunately for America, be assured that both Alvin Bragg and the Department of Justice under timid disappointment Merrick Garland will find reasons for delay through constant navel-gazing as the Malignant Loser runs out the clock again.