New York State Investigations of Trump and Related

[Suranis]

Jr is tweeting for daddy. His Twitter feed has gotten so much more ... Trumpish.

Its possible JR has handed the account over to daddy along with his soul.

[Gregg]

You know, now that I think about it, it does seem kind of strange that Eric is the one really running the business.

[Gregg]

Now that New York has his tax and financial records, Trump may have to decide whether to take a plea deal to keep them secret or go to trial which would make them public records and he still might go to jail.


Decisions, decisions.

[Maybenaut]

Now that New York has his tax and financial records, Trump may have to decide whether to take a plea deal to keep them secret or go to trial which would make them public records and he still might go to jail.


Decisions, decisions.

I can't see the State going for that. The government is as entitled to a public trial as the defendant is, if for no other reason than to show that the trial is not a witch hunt.

[Gregg]

Do you mean you don't see the state offering him a deal?
Oh that would be wonderful, drag his fat orange ass into a courtroom every day for 7 or 8 weeks, he'll go through 5 sets of lawyers and in the end demand he be allowed to testify, where he will perjure himself and go down.

[raison de arizona]

[Azastan]

Do you mean you don't see the state offering him a deal?
Oh that would be wonderful, drag his fat orange ass into a courtroom every day for 7 or 8 weeks, he'll go through 5 sets of lawyers and in the end demand he be allowed to testify, where he will perjure himself and go down.

That would be awesome.

[Volkonski]

Jeremy Herb
@jeremyherb
·
26m
NEW: The Manhattan District Attorney’s office has obtained former President Trump’s tax returns and related records, report

Prosecutors obtained the records Monday, just hours after the Supreme Court denied Trump’s effort to block it

The millions of pages of documents contain Trump's tax returns spanning from January 2011 to August 2019, as well as financial statements, engagement agreements and documents relating to the preparation and review of tax returns

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

:DANCING WILD AND FREE!!:

[Chilidog]

He's too much of a coward to testify in court.

[Gregg]

He's too much of a coward to testify in court.

And yet he's too stupid not to. After spending weeks listening to the prosecutors rip him a new one, he'll explode if he doesn't get to tell it his way, by lying.

[Suranis]

Based on video of a previous deposition, the Disgraced Former Occupant becomes a squeaky mouse when confronted with people with raw power over him, and he cant avoid the questions anymore.

The LAST thing he wants is to be forced to publically say what everyone knows. A narcissist is filled with shame and Everything, the Ego, the attacks, everything, is a desperate attempt to acknowledge that he is actually a failure and not a huge balloon filled with nothing.

Its not just evil, its psychic survival.

[filly]

Based on video of a previous deposition, the Disgraced Former Occupant becomes a squeaky mouse when confronted with people with raw power over him, and he cant avoid the questions anymore.

I disagree. When faced with a competent lawyer, he folds like a cheap suit.

I anticipate he will point at his accountants, say he just signed what they prepared based on what Weisselberg sent them. It won't work, of course, but that will be his first weasel attempt.

[zekeb]

Based on video of a previous deposition, the Disgraced Former Occupant becomes a squeaky mouse when confronted with people with raw power over him, and he cant avoid the questions anymore.

I disagree. When faced with a competent lawyer, he folds like a cheap suit.

I anticipate he will point at his accountants, say he just signed what they prepared based on what Weisselberg sent them. It won't work, of course, but that will be his first weasel attempt.

The accountants he hardly knew.

[Sunrise]

Based on video of a previous deposition, the Disgraced Former Occupant becomes a squeaky mouse when confronted with people with raw power over him, and he cant avoid the questions anymore.

I disagree. When faced with a competent lawyer, he folds like a cheap suit.

I anticipate he will point at his accountants, say he just signed what they prepared based on what Weisselberg sent them. It won't work, of course, but that will be his first weasel attempt.

The accountants he hardly knew.

Well he did have his picture taken with them once. Also too, they brought him coffee.

[Suranis]

I disagree. When faced with a competent lawyer, he folds like a cheap suit.

That's more or less what I was insinuating. Regardless, anyone that thinks he will be full of fire and piss when on the stand is going to be surprised, I think.

[humblescribe]

Now that New York has his tax and financial records, Trump may have to decide whether to take a plea deal to keep them secret or go to trial which would make them public records and he still might go to jail.


Decisions, decisions.

I can't see the State going for that. The government is as entitled to a public trial as the defendant is, if for no other reason than to show that the trial is not a witch hunt.

From my personal experience, the tax authorities would rather go after any irregularities on tax returns as civil, not criminal matters. The threshold is much lower. In addition, the agencies tack on interest and assorted penalties for negligence or significant understatement of taxable income. The feds (and I presume NYC and NYS) can also nail the preparer for negligence penalties as well. Preparers can lose their accounting license too--at least in California. While there may not be a criminal prosecution, the government can get more than its pound of flesh through a civil settlement agreement plus penalties and interest. It may be in the crumbling empire's best interests to settle civilly with the understanding that any understatement or misstatement of income/loss would be forwarded on up the food chain, with an agreement to ignore other matters that may still smell bad but would be more difficult to prove.

If there were to be a trial, the assertions and evidence would be beyond the understanding of everyone but tax lawyers and accountants. These are not easy cases to try and win. There is no dead body, no DNA, no murder weapon. Rather, there will be reams of paper with accountant's scratches and scribbles perhaps bolstered with some emails and then wrapped around hard-to-understand tax statutes, regulations, and case law. You'll get dueling experts on interpreting the laws and regs as they apply to the former guy, his issue, and his zillions of entities.

I agree that this investigation is not a witch hunt. We all have to pay our share of taxes as the law permits. We can take advantage of gray areas that are not specifically addressed in the statutes, case law, or regulations if we can argue our point of view with a reasonable chance of success (generally, more likely than not). It is the authorities job to investigate and assess whether tax laws were broken. Intent is more difficult to prove which is why civil prosecution is more prevalent. But the former guy has a way with inciting his cult with his choices of trite phrases and inflammatory rhetoric.

[Slim Cognito]

If I may add, he'll emphasize he insisted everything be done by the book, but they went behind his back and changed things without his knowledge.

[Maybenaut]

Now that New York has his tax and financial records, Trump may have to decide whether to take a plea deal to keep them secret or go to trial which would make them public records and he still might go to jail.


Decisions, decisions.

I can't see the State going for that. The government is as entitled to a public trial as the defendant is, if for no other reason than to show that the trial is not a witch hunt.

From my personal experience, the tax authorities would rather go after any irregularities on tax returns as civil, not criminal matters.

I don’t disagree with any of that. I just don’t think the State is going to allow the former guy to keep any of this secret, whether they treat it as a criminal or a civil matter.

[somerset]

I can't see the State going for that. The government is as entitled to a public trial as the defendant is, if for no other reason than to show that the trial is not a witch hunt.

From my personal experience, the tax authorities would rather go after any irregularities on tax returns as civil, not criminal matters.

I don’t disagree with any of that. I just don’t think the State is going to allow the former guy to keep any of this secret, whether they treat it as a criminal or a civil matter.

Yeah, even if the irregularities are sorta, kinda everyday (if on a grand scale), the person being investigated is anything but.

There may also be other criminal activity beyond tax evasion and loan fraud, which might preclude purely civil remedies.

[Gregg]

I disagree. When faced with a competent lawyer, he folds like a cheap suit.

I anticipate he will point at his accountants, say he just signed what they prepared based on what Weisselberg sent them. It won't work, of course, but that will be his first weasel attempt.

The accountants he hardly knew.

Well he did have his picture taken with them once. Also too, they brought him coffee.

They poured the coffee in front of him and only touched the bottom third of the cup.

[Gregg]

I understand that tax cases on this scale are really hard to put in front of a jury without having them nod off every day of a 7 week trial.

But two things that make this different it's Donald Trump, this is someone the jurors will surely know and have some opinion of, and second, its not at all unlikely that the jury of cab drivers, restaurant workers and a guy who doubles up in a pizza joint to make ends meet because his janitorial job just doesn't pay enough will be eager to toss him in the East River if it turns out he paid a grand total of $49 in city tax over 5 years.

[slq]

IIRC, this was a grand jury subpoena? (I'll admit to general confusion about the multitude of information, so please correct me if I'm wrong.) If so, the result will be a grand jury indictment or a no bill. What happens after that depends on what the grand jury does.

[noblepa]

I disagree. When faced with a competent lawyer, he folds like a cheap suit.

That's more or less what I was insinuating. Regardless, anyone that thinks he will be full of fire and piss when on the stand is going to be surprised, I think.

I don't know.

You just know that, even in a courtroom that doesn't normally allow cameras, the networks and probably Trump himself, will insist that the trial be televised.

Know that the camera will be on him, I can see him putting on a show: acting disinterested, making faces to the camera and mouthing 'loser" every time the prosecutor speaks.

At every courtroom break, he will be in the lobby, holding court with the reporters, especially those from Fox, proclaiming loudly that this is just a continuation of the greatest witch hunt in history. He won't be able to resist reiterating the lies about the stolen election, even in a trial about tax fraud.

If he takes the stand, it will be more of the same. His lawyers will lob him softball questions, that let him histrionically, again, argue that the election was stolen and that he is a the most stable genius who ever lived and the greatest President ever. I think that judge will have to continually stop him and remind him to answer only the question that was asked.

A televised trial is a lot different than a deposition, which is unlikely to be seen by more than a few people. In the courtroom he will have a newfound soapbox from which to claim the spotlight.

[chancery]

You just know that, even in a courtroom that doesn't normally allow cameras, the networks and probably Trump himself, will insist that the trial be televised.

For better or worse -- better, IMO -- it doesn't work like that in New York State. N.Y. Civil Rights Law § 52.

The primary issue on this appeal is whether Civil Rights Law § 52, which bans audiovisual coverage of most courtroom proceedings, violates the Federal or State Constitution. We agree with the Supreme Court and the Appellate Division that there is no First Amendment or New York Constitution, article I, § 8 right to televise a trial.

Courtroom Television Network LLC v. New York, 5 N.Y.3d 222 (2005).
Note: In the NYS judicial system, "Supreme Court" refers to a trial court.