One set of reports listed the tower’s 2010 profits as $13.3 million; a second put them at $16.1 million. That helped the Trump Organization borrow $73 million more than it had before.
by Heather Vogell
A decade ago, loan filings showed Trump Tower in New York City had a reported profit of about $13.3 million. But when the tower refinanced its debt soon after, the profits for the same year — 2010 — somehow appeared higher. A new lender listed the profits as $16.1 million, or 21% more than they had been recorded previously. The next year’s earnings for the building also “improved” between the two filings. Profits for 2011 were listed as 12% higher under the new loan than the old, according to reports by loan servicers and data provider Trepp. ProPublica uncovered the Trump Tower discrepancies by examining publicly available data for mortgages that are packaged into securities known as commercial mortgage-backed securities, comparing the same years in reports for different CMBS. If a bank had held onto the loan, instead of selling it to investors, such information would have been kept private. No evidence has emerged that the Trump Organization was involved in changing the profit figures. Alan Garten, the Trump Organization’s chief legal officer, said: “Not only were the numbers provided to the servicer accurate, but Trump Tower is considered one of the most underleveraged commercial buildings around.” The discrepancies in the tower profits match a pattern described in a whistleblower complaint filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which ProPublica revealed this month. The complaint accuses commercial lenders of fraudulently inflating the income numbers underlying loans in many CMBS. The complaint named seven servicers and 14 lenders, including two of the country’s biggest issuers of CMBS — Ladder Capital and Wells Fargo. Both were involved in the more recent Trump Tower loan, one as the lender, the second as the financial institution that packaged the loan into a CMBS. The complaint does not say which entities altered specific numbers and does not address whether borrowers were involved in, or knew about, the alleged fraud.
A new book levels 43 allegations of inappropriate behavior by President Trump—including a controversial one from the early 1980s that has never before been aired.By Lachlan Cartwright - the daily beast
A new book detailing 43 new allegations of inappropriate behavior by President Trump—including 26 alleged instances of unwanted sexual conduct—is set to land on bookstands early next week. Many of the allegations in the book, All the President’s Women: Donald Trump and the Making of a Predator, published by Hachette, have been leveled before. But at least one, from Trump’s deep past, has not been previously aired: that, in the ’80s, he frequented a Mafia-run VIP sex club in Times Square, and once demanded a threesome with a porn star and a young-looking female. The allegation centers on interviews with one self-proclaimed eyewitness, a former mobster named John Tino.
But neither of the two women supposedly involved in the incident could be located by the authors—which leaves the charge in the hands of a man whose criminal record includes convictions for larceny, fraud, and forgery. Even the authors admit their account is hardly airtight, while nonetheless defending their work. “There are many people who will label Tino a liar and say his claims are false. I came away feeling his allegations are believable,” one of the authors, Barry Levine, told The Daily Beast. The White House did not respond to requests to comment for this article, but Trump in the past has strongly denied any allegations of sexual impropriety. “That book is trash, and those accusations from 20 years ago have been addressed many times,” White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement to Business Insider about All the President’s Women.
Tino swears he remembers Trump as “the real estate guy” during his years as hired muscle for the sex den, which he says was run by a notorious crime boss. In the book, to be published Tuesday, Levine and co-author Monique El-Faizy write that the secret club was allegedly frequented by rich and powerful men, including Trump. “Most of the women who worked there were porn stars, though not all. Trump preferred a woman who primarily performed live sex shows with her husband, though she acted in the occasional adult film as well,” the authors state.
By Sonam Sheth
Newly uncovered tax documents from President Donald Trump contain several discrepancies that real-estate experts said could point to financial fraud, ProPublica reported on Wednesday. The documents obtained by ProPublica were part of records for four Trump properties in New York City: Trump International Hotel and Tower, 40 Wall Street, Trump Tower, and 1290 Avenue of the Americas. Tax records for 40 Wall Street and the Trump International Hotel and Tower reportedly contained discrepancies that could raise some red flags — specifically, the numbers made the properties look more valuable to lenders and less valuable to tax authorities, ProPublica said. In one instance in 2017, according to ProPublica, Trump told a lender that he got twice as much rent from one building as he reported to tax authorities that year.
Nancy Wallace, a professor of finance and real estate at the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley, told the outlet she couldn't see why there were inconsistencies in the first place, adding that they looked like "versions of fraud." Trump has been at the center of several financial scandals. The New York Times reported last year that Trump used a series of dubious tax schemes to shield a $400 million inheritance from the IRS. And in September, Mother Jones published an investigation that found that Trump might have fabricated a loan to avoid paying $50 million in income taxes. But Trump has long maintained that he has committed no financial or tax crimes. He has said he can't release his tax returns because they are under audit, even though there is no rule to prevent him from doing so.
But the president may soon be forced to give his tax returns to investigators. On October 7, US District Judge Victor Marrero ordered Trump to turn over eight years of his tax returns to New York prosecutors investigating whether he violated state laws by fabricating business records. Days later, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ordered the president to turn over the past eight years of his tax returns to the House Oversight Committee, saying lawmakers have the right to see the documents. Trump's lawyers have said they will fight both decisions and take them to the Supreme Court if they have to. But the public may still get a window into the president's closely held financial documents thanks to an employee at the IRS who recently blew the whistle on "inappropriate efforts to influence" the agency's audit of Trump's tax returns. According to The Washington Post, the person accused of trying to interfere with the audit is a political appointee at the Treasury Department. more...
By Elliot Hannon
It’s not Trump’s taxes, the whole enchilada, but ProPublica got ahold of property tax documents of the Trump Organization, adding to the growing corpus of financial info on the president that strongly points to Trump deploying a secret financial weapon to maintain the appearance of “successful businessman”—fraud. ProPublica collated financial info from public sources and found the president was reporting different numbers on his properties to lenders and tax authorities. Trump arranged the numbers to paint a rosier picture of his buildings’ performance for lenders to secure cheaper loans, and then rearranged those numbers to look less profitable when reporting to the taxman in order to lower his property taxes. “The documents were public because Trump appealed his property tax bill for the buildings every year for nine years in a row, the extent of the available records,” ProPublica reports. “We compared the tax records with loan records that became public when Trump’s lender, Ladder Capital, sold the debt on his properties as part of mortgage-backed securities.” The site reviewed records for four Trump buildings and found noticeable discrepancies at two properties in particular—40 Wall Street and the Trump International Hotel and Tower. more...
By Veronica Stracqualursi, CNN
(CNN) - President Donald Trump's real estate business reported different financial figures for two of his Manhattan properties to lenders than to New York tax authorities, according to documents obtained by ProPublica. The different sets of numbers on expenses, profits and occupancy figures resulted in the two buildings appearing more lucrative to lenders and less so to city officials assessing property taxes, ProPublica found in an investigation published Wednesday. ProPublica obtained the property tax documents through the state of New York's Freedom of Information Act law and loan records after Trump's lender sold the debt on the properties, making them public.
The Trump Organization did not respond to questions from ProPublica or CNN. ProPublica had reviewed the documents for four Trump properties, finding discrepancies involving two of them -- 40 Wall Street and the Trump International Hotel and Tower. Trump has not publicly released his tax returns, claiming that he's barred from doing so because he's under IRS audit. Being under IRS audit does not prevent someone from making their tax returns public. CNN previously reported that Trump believed in 2013 and 2014 that releasing his tax returns as part of a presidential bid would make him look like a smart businessman who had spent years lowering his taxable income, according to two people with firsthand knowledge of conversations at the time. According to ProPublica, Trump's company reported to New York City tax officials that it made about $822,000 in 2017 renting out space in the Trump International Hotel and Tower -- which Trump owns only a portion of -- to two commercial tenants. However, the company told Ladder Capital that it made $1.67 million that same year — more than twice as much reported to tax authorities, ProPublica reported.
ProPublica also found that Trump had given conflicting occupancy figures for 40 Wall Street, recently rebranded as "The Trump Building." The Trump Organization told the lender that 40 Wall Street had been 58.9% leased as of December 31, 2012. A few years later, the occupancy level had been raised to 95%. The company reported to tax officials that the building was 81% rented as of January 5, 2013. The figures in the tax and loan reports finally matched up in January 2016, ProPublica noted. The portrayal of an increase in occupancy and prediction that revenue would surge were critical to helping Trump secure a refinance loan for 40 Wall Street, according to ProPublica. Experts told ProPublica that there can be legitimate reasons for the differences in tax and loan documents but that the multiple inconsistencies lacked a clear explanation. As President, he has faced numerous legal challenges seeking the release of his tax returns, including from House Democrats and the Manhattan district attorney. Trump on Friday lost his appeal to stop a House subpoena of his tax documents from his longtime accountant Mazars USA. The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit upheld a lower court ruling saying the firm must turn over eight years of accounting records. more...
By Morgan Chalfant and Olivia Beavers
The Justice Department inspector general has completed an internal review on whether the FBI complied with the law and its own policies while applying for a warrant to surveil former Trump campaign aide Carter Page during the 2016 election. Inspector General Michael Horowitz wrote in a letter to members of Congress on Friday that his office had “reviewed over one million records and conducted over 100 interviews” in connection with the inquiry and is in the early stages of finalizing its report. Horowitz wrote that he has submitted a draft of the “factual findings” of the inquiry to the Justice Department and FBI for a classification review, after which the inspector general’s office will begin the process of preparing final classified and public drafts of the report. “The team has reviewed over one million records and conducted over 100 interviews, including several witnesses who only recently agreed to be interviewed,” Horowitz wrote. “We have now begun the process of finalizing our report by providing a draft of our factual findings to the Department and the FBI for classification determination and marking.”
Horowitz did not provide any details on the findings, nor did he offer a timeline on when a report might be released to the public. The inspector general said he would update the committees on his progress toward issuing the final report when possible. The letter was sent to the top Republicans and Democrats on the House and Senate Oversight and Judiciary Committees on Friday. The inspector general disclosed in May 2018, at the request of congressional Republicans, that he would review whether the Justice Department and FBI complied with legal requirements and followed appropriate policies and procedures in applying to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) for a warrant related to “a certain U.S. person.” While the individual was not named in the announcement, the person is widely known to be Page, the former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser who was investigated in connection with the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the election. more...
By Bess Levin
Newly obtained documents show the brazen methods with which the president inflated his assets to banks and insurance companies. During his 72 years on Earth, Donald Trump has told something like 2,936,880 lies, based on my back-of-the-envelope calculations. (According to The Washington Post, the president has told at least 9,179 whoppers just since taking the oath of office—so, you do the math.) Sometimes, the lies are big, like the one he told about seeing “thousands” of supposed terrorist sympathizers “cheering” from New Jersey as the World Trade Center towers collapsed on 9/11. Other times, the lies are small and largely pointless, like his claim that he didn’t call Tim Cook “Tim Apple” when he 100 percent did, on-camera, in a room full of people. Frequently, the lies revolve around his net worth, including its origin (his father) and how big it is (a lot smaller than he claims).
As we learned from Michael Cohen’s congressional testimony last month and a New York Times exposé last week, Trump’s lies about his wealth haven’t been confined to bragging about it on TV, but have also allegedly manifested in financial statements sent to banks and insurance companies, in which the ex-real-estate developer inflated his assets in order to obtain loans. And now, thanks to documents obtained by the Post, we have some fun examples of his most absurd financial claims, many of which are now under scrutiny. During his 72 years on Earth, Donald Trump has told something like 2,936,880 lies, based on my back-of-the-envelope calculations. (According to The Washington Post, the president has told at least 9,179 whoppers just since taking the oath of office—so, you do the math.) Sometimes, the lies are big, like the one he told about seeing “thousands” of supposed terrorist sympathizers “cheering” from New Jersey as the World Trade Center towers collapsed on 9/11.
Other times, the lies are small and largely pointless, like his claim that he didn’t call Tim Cook “Tim Apple” when he 100 percent did, on-camera, in a room full of people. Frequently, the lies revolve around his net worth, including its origin (his father) and how big it is (a lot smaller than he claims). As we learned from Michael Cohen’s congressional testimony last month and a New York Times exposé last week, Trump’s lies about his wealth haven’t been confined to bragging about it on TV, but have also allegedly manifested in financial statements sent to banks and insurance companies, in which the ex-real-estate developer inflated his assets in order to obtain loans. And now, thanks to documents obtained by the Post, we have some fun examples of his most absurd financial claims, many of which are now under scrutiny. more...
By JOSH GERSTEIN
A trove of court documents unsealed Friday detail allegations by an alleged victim of wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein that while working as a teenage locker room attendant at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort nearly two decades ago she was recruited to give Epstein massages that often involved sexual activity. The roughly 2,000 pages of records released by the Manhattan-based 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals also show the same woman, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, appears to have claimed she had sex with a series of prominent men — including former politicians — at Epstein’s direction while working as a staff masseuse for the investment adviser, who eventually came under investigation in 2006 for sex trafficking over his involvement with teenage girls.
That probe wound up in a controversial plea deal where federal prosecutors in Florida agreed not to file charges against Epstein in exchange for him pleading guilty in 2008 to two state prostitution-related felonies. He served only about 13 months in county jail, much of it with permission to work from his office during the day. The deal drew objections and a lawsuit from some of Epstein’s victims, who alleged they were illegally kept in the dark about the agreement. Earlier this year, a federal judge agreed the victims’ rights were violated. That ruling, and a fresh indictment of Epstein in federal court in New York City last month, set in motion the resignation of Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, who was the chief federal prosecutor in south Florida and signed off on the Epstein deal. more...
By Lee Moran
President Donald Trump made up a story that he narrowly avoided boarding a helicopter that crashed and killed five people, according to a former longtime executive of the Trump Organization. Barbara Res, who was the company’s vice president in charge of construction, recalled to MSNBC’s Ari Melber on Tuesday how three Trump casino executives and two crew members were killed in the October 1989 disaster. They were returning to Atlantic City from promoting a boxing match in New York City when the aircraft went down. more...
By Beth Reinhard, Rosalind S. Helderman and Marc Fisher
For the better part of two decades starting in the late 1980s, Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump swam in the same social pool. They were neighbors in Florida. They jetted from LaGuardia to Palm Beach together. They partied at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club and dined at Epstein’s Manhattan mansion. And then, in 2004, they were suddenly rivals, each angling to snag a choice Palm Beach property, an oceanfront manse called Maison de l’Amitie — the House of Friendship — that was being sold out of bankruptcy. Before the auction, Epstein and Trump each tried to work the ref; the trustee in the case, Joseph Luzinski, recalls being lobbied by both camps. “It was something like, Donald saying, ‘You don’t want to do a deal with him, he doesn’t have the money,’ while Epstein was saying: ‘Donald is all talk. He doesn’t have the money,’ ” Luzinski said. “They both really wanted it.” more...
FBI agents allege in newly-unsealed documents the president directly oversaw hush money agreement with adult film actress. Donald Trump, Michael Cohen and Hope Hicks reportedly held a series of phone calls during the 2016 presidential election discussing how to keep adult film actress Stephanie Clifford, known as Stormy Daniels, from going public with her story of an alleged affair. The calls were revealed on Thursday morning after a year-old unredacted search warrant application for Cohen was released to the public following the close of his federal case. The FBI said the calls also included David Pecker and Dylan Howard, both executives from American Media, Inc. Three days after one of those calls, Stormy Daniels signed a hush money agreement that would keep her from revealing her alleged affair with Mr Trump until after he secured the Oval Office. “Based on the timing of these calls, and the content of the text messages and emails, I believe that at least some of these communications concerned the need to prevent Clifford from going public, particularly in the wake of the Access Hollywood story,” the FBI agents wrote, referring to the controversial leaked Access Hollywood tapes that feature Mr Trump openly discussing groping women without consent. Though FBI agents do not know the substance of the phone calls between Cohen and Mr Trump, there were back-to-back calls on 26 October, the same time the president’s self-titled “fixer” was creating a bank account to transfer $130,000 (£104,108) to the adult film actress. more...
