State of New York vs Trump, et al - the civil fraud case against the Trump Organization

[DrIrvingFinegarten]

Say you’ve never been a loan officer without saying you’ve never been a loan officer.

[Sam the Centipede]

Gateway Pundit AND Scott Adams! – who could doubt such unbiased and well-informed analysis? /rwnj

[DrIrvingFinegarten]

Gateway Pundit AND Scott Adams! – who could doubt such unbiased and well-informed analysis? /rwnj

Someone tried to tell me that by questioning Scott Adams’ statement, that I know nothing about corporate finance. How so?

[Rolodex]

Say you’ve never been a loan officer without saying you’ve never been a loan officer.

That's hysterical. I actually was a loan officer. And a bank compliance officer. Scott's an idiot.

In my early years I worked "perfecting" documents for securing collateral for large commercial loans (like for tanker vessels and trains). Commercial lending isn't as easy as, "yeah I think you're good for it."

Caveat - I will say some folks just get bamboozled. I heard a story today about Adam Neumann, the guy who started WeWork - which just filed for bankruptcy. The business was a basic real estate company, but in the go-go days of Silicon Valley VC's, he was able to bamboozle investors by selling it as a tech start-up, which was sexy (and probably misunderstood by investors in those days). Neumann apparently is one of those "world's greatest salesman" type guys.

[DrIrvingFinegarten]

Say you’ve never been a loan officer without saying you’ve never been a loan officer.

That's hysterical. I actually was a loan officer. And a bank compliance officer. Scott's an idiot.

In my early years I worked "perfecting" documents for securing collateral for large commercial loans (like for tanker vessels and trains). Commercial lending isn't as easy as, "yeah I think you're good for it."

Caveat - I will say some folks just get bamboozled. I heard a story today about Adam Neumann, the guy who started WeWork - which just filed for bankruptcy. The business was a basic real estate company, but in the go-go days of Silicon Valley VC's, he was able to bamboozle investors by selling it as a tech start-up, which was sexy (and probably misunderstood by investors in those days). Neumann apparently is one of those "world's greatest salesman" type guys.

So Adams is wrong?

[bob]

So Adams is wrong?

Adams' correctness is irrelevant.

Adams is engaging in a logical fallacy: appeal to the authority; that is, his own authority.

Adams is saying, "I have relevant experience, therefore I'm correct."

You could say, "Even assuming Adams has sufficient expertise worthy of an informed opinion, here's another loan officer coming to a different conclusion."

It won't matter: Adams, if he responded, would dismiss a contrary opinion. Anyone predisposed to agree with Adams, The Gateway Pundit, or these defendants would similarly dismiss another expert's opinion.

I would never expect Adams or his elk to say, "Upon consideration of other viewpoints, Adams is wrong."

Reality eventually will prove Adams wrong: But, when this case doesn't disappear, and Adams and his elk stop moving the goalposts ("let's see what the judge says"; "let's see what the appellate court says"; "let's see what SCOTUS says"), they'll have long forgotten about this, and will have moved onto a new, more topical outrage.

The Gateway Pundit's "may" in its headline is doing all the work: I haven't even read the article that spins the bank officer's testimony, but I too can freely speculate and say the court will give it little to no weight when it lowers the boom on these defendants.

[Slim Cognito]

Me who knows nothing of finance other than trusting my money lady wonders, even if the banks aren't disappointed or feel cheated, how about all the tax $$ NYS and city lost when he was under-evaluating?

[raison de arizona]

Me who knows nothing of finance other than trusting my money lady wonders, even if the banks aren't disappointed or feel cheated, how about all the tax $$ NYS and city lost when he was under-evaluating?

That and there is a finite amount of money floating around to loan out. By sucking up more than his fair share fraudulently, tfg swindled everyone else out of their opportunities to vie for a loan.

[bob]

That and there is a finite amount of money floating around to loan out. By sucking up more than his fair share fraudulently, tfg swindled everyone else out of their opportunities to vie for a loan.

Which is yet another reason why Adams is wrong: The judge already found that fraud occurred; the issue now before the court is the penalty to impose.

And whether to impose a penalty, and the size of the penalty, won't be determined by the bank's feelings. Because the law is (rightly) concerned about deterrence, to ensure fraud doesn't also harm those who were denied a loan due to insufficient capital to loan out.

In anything, the bank's implicit complicity with this fraud is an aggravating circumstance.

[raison de arizona]

Trump Caught Moving Money Around to Pay Massive Tax Bill
HIGH WIRE TRANSFER
Trump wasn't supposed to be moving significant amounts of money around without notifying a court-appointed auditor. He just got caught paying himself so he could pay his taxes.

A court-ordered financial auditor has caught Donald Trump quietly moving $40 million from the Trump Organization into a personal bank account—seemingly so the former president could pay his whopping $29 million tax bill.

Trump isn’t supposed to be moving any money around without alerting Barbara S. Jones, a former federal judge in New York tasked with babysitting the Trump Organization for its relentlessly shady business practices. But on Wednesday, she notified a New York state court about some major bank transfers that were never brought to her attention by the Trumps.

Jones described the way she discovered the Trump family company once again breaking the rules during an audit of its finances in recent months. In the run-up to the ongoing bank fraud trial that threatens to vaporize the real estate company and boot the Trumps from the business world, Justice Arthur F. Engoron ordered the company to not start shifting around funds to avoid paying what’s becoming an increasingly threatening massive penalty.

That meant the Trumps had to notify Jones anytime they moved more than $5 million out of the billionaire’s massive trust. Except they didn’t.

Jones said she and her team recently spotted unusual activity when reviewing 10 months of bank statements from 12 separate accounts belonging to the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust. They found that Trump had pulled out $40 million in “three cash transfers” without ever notifying her.

She asked about it and got answers.

“These transactions included a cash transfer of $29 million to Donald J. Trump, which I have confirmed was used for tax payments,” she wrote.

But the rest apparently went to cover Trump’s mounting legal costs following a searing jury verdict in May that determined he sexually assaulted the journalist E. Jean Carroll—and slapped him with a $5 million penalty.

“I have also confirmed that the other transfers were for insurance premiums and to an attorney escrow account,” Jones wrote, referencing the Carroll case.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-cau ... e-tax-bill

[AndyinPA]

Lock hm up!

A good example of how he has handled company and personal money for years, no doubt.

[raison de arizona]

The letter from Jones:

► Show Spoiler

[Kendra]

Stephanie Ruhle was on a Deadline WH panel today talking about testimony today from Deutsche Bank executive. A lot it was over my feeble head, but worth a listen and from what I gather, Ruhle is digging deeper on tonight's 11th hour. I could be wrong though, so don't quote me

[AndyinPA]

This is Stephanie's territory.

[p0rtia]

I've never been a fan of Ruhle, but she won me over today. Epic rant--if giving facts based on education and experience can be considered a rant.

Bottom line, The Deutche Bank woman is way too big for her britches; the only reason TFG went to D Bank was because no one else would deal with him (we knew this); and now the properties involved in the loans she (D Bank woman) was so proud of are blowing up.

[Kendra]

I've never been a fan of Ruhle, but she won me over today. Epic rant--if giving facts based on education and experience can be considered a rant.

Bottom line, The Deutche Bank woman is way too big for her britches; the only reason TFG went to D Bank was because no one else would deal with him (we knew this); and now the properties invovled in the loans she (D Bank woman) was so proud of are blowing up.

Excellent summation, thank you. Now if I can stay up for tonight's show...

[AndyinPA]

I used to watch her some when she and Ali Velshi were on at 9 AM, but haven't followed her to her 11 PM show. But I learned that when it comes to economics and banking, both of them know what they are talking about, so if I know there's something financial going on, I'll catch her.

[Kendra]

I will have to queue it up tomorrow when I have the chance. She sure was fired up today on DLWH.

[Kendra]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... c598&ei=11

Deutsche Bank executives practically swooned over Donald Trump's real estate fortune, according to internal documents made public by the defense in his New York civil fraud trial.

Trump was seen as a wealthy, fiscally-responsible "whale" who could open doors to his own billions and those of his "network" of fellow moguls, the documents revealed.

The internal emails and briefings, many more than a decade old, were shown on large screens in the Manhattan courtroom, to bolster the defense claim that Deutsche Bank was once among the former president's most well-rewarded Stans, instead of his biggest fraud victim, as state officials allege.
Trump's lawyers have repeatedly argued that there is no "victim" in this case.

"We are whale hunting," former Deutsche Bank executive Rosemary Vrablic told her fellow bankers of Trump in an email from 2011, soon after son-in-law Jared Kushner offered to make an introduction.

Whale hunting?
"It's a term used when there is a very high net-worth individual who is a prospective client," Vrablic explained in a crisp voice on Tuesday, after she was called to the witness stand by Trump's lawyers.

The bankers sometimes called their whale "The Donald," testimony showed.

This endearment was apparently used just among themselves, in internal emails during the heady, early days of the Trump-Deutsche Bank relationship, when the bank eagerly loaned the soon-to-be president more than $400 million.

It was money Trump used to develop his Miami golf resort, his Chicago skyscraper, and the Old Post Office in Washington, D.C., projects that burnished his reputation as a billionaire developer and helped propel him to the White House.

"Given the circles this family travels in," Vrablic emailed her colleagues just 10 months into the banking relationship, "we expect to be introduced to the wealthiest people on the planet."'

"The Chicago condos are selling like hotcakes," Vrablic said in an email to her fellow bankers two years later, displaying far more enthusiasm than on the stand Tuesday, when she dryly translated "hotcakes."

That particular term meant, "at a faster pace than we had expected," she testified, under direct examination by Trump attorney Jesus Suarez.

[Foggy]

What that means is that he managed to borrow $400 million because people like Rosemary Vrablic are greedy and stupid. Instead of really digging into the claimed value of the collateral Trump was putting up against the loans, she was focused entirely on all the other billionaires she thought would borrow money from Deutsche Bank. And pay back, with interest, a thing Donald Trump had no intention of doing.

She had his history available to her.

She had the ability to find out what his properties were really worth.

But she was greedy, and stupid. Was there testimony about how much Deutsche Bank was repaid of that $400 million?

Was she cross-examined yet?

[Maybenaut]

This seems like a stupid position for the defense to take. DB was whale hunting because they thought he was a whale. And they thought he was a whale because he told them he was a whale, and proved it with his fraudulent submissions.

[bob]

"For completeness," Vrablic is the Deutsche Bank executive who resigned in December 2020.

[Estiveo]

The gag orders are back on.

[Kendra]

Good.

[Volkonski]

Good.