Why a court monitor may have provided 'the cherry on top' in Trump fraud case: legal expert

01 February 2024

In late 2022, both sides in New York Attorney General Letitia James' civil fraud case against Donald Trump agreed to the use of an independent court monitor: Barbara Jones. The former federal judge has been monitoring the Trump Organization and submitting reports to Arthur Engoron, the judge assigned to the case.

Engoron has agreed with James' allegation that Trump deceived banks by inflating the value of his assets. But as of early Thursday morning, February 1, it remains to be seen how much in sanctions Trump will have to pay.

Jones e-mailed Engoron a letter/report on January 26. And MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin, in an opinion column published on January 31, lays out some reasons why Jones' input could be bad for Trump.

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"In her most recent report, as many have noted, (Jones) not only identified a variety of irregularities, but also, flagged something potentially more significant: the absence of any loan agreement memorializing what she understood to be a $48 million loan to Trump from Chicago Unit Acquisition, an entity affiliated with his Chicago building," Rubin explains. "That loan, which reportedly was made in 2012, seems to have been repeatedly included among Trump's liabilities in his U.S. Office of Government Ethics-required financial disclosures in 2018, 2019, 2020 and just days before leaving office in 2021. Yet in her letter, Jones noted that in her recent discussions with the Trump Organization, the company 'indicated that it has determined that this loan never existed.'"

Rubin continues, "What's more, Jones' letter implies that Trump's present-day disclosures to the Office of Government Ethics are similarly flawed. Indeed, a review of Trump's 2023 personal financial disclosure report, which he filed as a presidential candidate in April of last year, reflects the loan as an existing liability, not an extinguished one. If the loan never existed, that means that Trump — while under a court-appointed monitorship — was lying to the federal government and misleading the monitor."

Depending on what Engoron decides, the case could bring Trump more financial pain on top of the damages that juries ordered him to pay in writer E. Jean Carroll's civil defamation lawsuits against him — $5 million in Carroll's first case, $83.3 million in her second. James has recommended a sanction of $370 million in her civil fraud case.

"The AG's office argues (that) Trump and the others' unlawful financial conduct persisted throughout the attorney general's investigation and even after the monitor's appointment," Rubin explains. "That Jones has uncovered what could be even further evidence of fraud, as recently as last year, could be the cherry on top of the sundae that Engoron serves Trump."

Lisa Rubin's full MSNBC column is available at this link.

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