'My God, this is some street-level mobster stuff': Lawyers on what we know now about the Trump...

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

Tweet text:
Andrew Feinberg
@AndrewFeinberg
NEW: New York lawyers say the @ManhattanDA's indictment of the @Trump Organization shows a less-than-impressive criminal mind at work in Trump Tower.
“Two sets of books? That’s like ‘how to commit tax fraud 101’ at crime college,” said one ex-prosecutor.

‘My God, this is some street-level mobster stuff’: Lawyers on what we know now about the Trump...
‘This indictment is absolutely brilliant in the sense that it really puts Donald Trump between a rock and a hard place... They’re absolutely f****ed’
independent.co.uk
3:38 PM · Jul 1, 2021

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trump-organization-tax-charges-new-york-weisselberg-b1876714.html

Shortly after representatives of the Trump Organization and the company’s Chief Financial Officer, Allen Weisselberg, finished entering “not guilty” pleas in response to a 15-count indictment for tax fraud, attorney Susan Necheles stepped up to a bank of microphones. She then repeated the line her ultimate client — the former president of the United States — has been using for more than five years: “This case is truly unprecedented — the attorney general’s office and the district attorney’s office brought a joint prosecution because they dislike Donald Trump politically.”

It’s a line Trump uses any time anyone makes any attempt to hold him to the law’s boundaries. From his repeated claims that ex-Special Counsel Robert Mueller employed “18 angry Democrats” to probe whether his 2016 presidential campaign had received help from the Russian government, to the various claims of “witch hunt!” anytime a Congressional committee made the slightest request of him or his administration, Trump has made a habit of reducing any charge made against him, his family, or any of his allies to mere politics. And to hear his attorneys on the day his eponymous company was indicted, one might be tempted to wonder whether this latest prosecution was something extraordinary. After all, the defendant is a company owned by a former president, so it must be a special case, right?

Not so much.

While Trumpworld — and to be fair, much of the media — is waxing lyrical about how unprecedented it is for a former president’s company to face criminal charges, experts are describing the allegations laid out in the 24-page indictment as anything but. Instead, they compare the charges to that which would be filed against your garden-variety fraudster.

One experienced New York lawyer — a former prosecutor who once worked under Attorney General Letitia James — was aghast at the base nature of the crimes Trump’s eponymous corporation has been accused of committing.

*snip*

[gratuitous]

1. The same guy who defrauded Trump University "students" and had to pay out $25 million?

He was defrauding the government, too? Get the fuck out!

Yes, it is unprecedented for a former president's company to face criminal charges. It would appear that the former guy was sui generis. The concept baffles Trumpworld and the media.

[Comfortably_Numb]

2. "How to commit tax fraud 101" ---the only real class taught at trump university.

[FakeNoose]

3. Why are all the "smart" lawyers and accountants surprised?

I'm neither an account nor a lawyer, and NONE of this shocks me.

Anybody with any street-smarts would have seen this playing out long ago. Even Michael Cohen spelled it out for us only 2 years ago. Why are these people aghast that the Chump Organization is basically a dirt-bag mafia company?

[Maraya1969]

4. I am surprised that they never got him before but then again maybe because

he kept a much lower profile than when he ran for president. Then his criminality seemed so obvious that he was just asking for investigations.

Even the running tally of his lies made most normal people realize he was probably a crook.

[Metaphorical]

8. Trump's ego trumped his intelligence

I've felt from early in 2016 that Trump had not expected to win. He wanted to raise his personal stock after putting him into a position where he was borrowing too heavily from the Russians, and that the best way that he could that was to lose becoming President then riding the lecture circuit and becoming the mover behind the throne. Unfortunately for him (and us), he DID win.

Once in power, he let his greed and overweening ego get the best of him, but once into it he also realized that the only way that he could keep his rapidly escalating crime spree from catching up to him was to go all out authoritarian. This suited the GOP just fine because they were facing an existential crisis, and going authoritarian was the ONLY way they could remain in power.

[Maraya1969]

10. I think you're right. eom

[Baitball Blogger]

5. Well, then it doesn't say much about out criminal system that it took

them this long to take the case this far.

[Midnight Writer]

6. That's my thought. If someone as brazen as Trump was getting away with this for so many years...

Think of what corporations that actually hide their misdeeds must get away with.

[Baitball Blogger]

7. Our criminal justice system is not keeping up with the level of corruption that our society

seems to sustain.

[Frustratedlady]

9. I remember reading about how his father ran his business with the 2-book system.

For instance, if he bought equipment for an apartment building, he would have the actual bill from the supplier, but would have a fictitious figure for tax records in the 2nd set of books. Boilers, central A/C, steel, electrical, etc.

Imagine what he got by with all those years.

[lame54]

11. Then why aren't there more charges...

They commit crimes daily and don't bother to hide them well

[Nevilledog]

12. I feel strongly there will be more indictments.

None of these charges even touch on the real estate dealings.

[Blue Owl]

13. The Slobfather made himself an offer his fat ass couldn't refuse

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