Two companies under the umbrella of the Trump Organization, the eponymous company owned by former President Donald Trump, have been found guilty of multiple charges of fraud relating to executives’ scheme to avoid paying taxes by providing untaxed, high-end benefits to employees in lieu of compensation.
A Manhattan jury found the two smaller companies, Trump Corp. and Trump Payroll Corp., guilty of all 17 counts of tax fraud that prosecutors had brought forward. The companies had been accused of providing employees with expensive apartments, cars, and other benefits (including cable television and school tuition for children) instead of actual payments, a move that allowed them to avoid paying taxes on compensation for Trump Organization workers.
The guilty verdict won’t affect Trump or his family members directly — any punishments that are doled out after the verdict will affect the Trump Organization, which could face up to $1.61 million in fines. But the verdict is an embarrassing outcome for the former president, who in the past has suggested that his profile as a businessman rendered him qualified to run the country and who announced last month that he’d be running for president again in the 2024 election cycle.
Indeed, Trump frequently derided the merits of the case on his Truth Social profile, referring to the inquiry as a political “witch hunt.”
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg celebrated the ruling, saying on Tuesday night that the case highlighted the “inner workings of the Trump Organization,” including “the greed, the lies [and] the cheating.”
Some legal experts have suggested that Bragg didn’t go far enough, and that his charges against the Trump Organization should have included accusations against Trump himself.
“In light of the verdict in Manhattan, there will be a lot of second guessing the decision Alvin Bragg made to indict the organization, but not Trump, especially since prosecutors argued in closing that Trump knew,” former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance said on Twitter.
Although Tuesday’s verdict won’t affect Trump directly, the outcome of the case will likely “embolden” Bragg in a separate, ongoing criminal investigation into Trump, The New York Times reported, which focuses on his actions as a business owner and his hush-money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Trump faces myriad other investigations that could interfere with his presidential bid next year — including federal investigations by the Department of Justice (DOJ) into his attempts to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss and into his improper transfer of thousands of government documents from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida following his departure from office.
Unlike the Trump Organization trial that concluded this week, those inquiries and others involve Trump directly, and could result in significant prison time for the former president if he’s found guilty.
Help us Prepare for Trump’s Day One
Trump is busy getting ready for Day One of his presidency – but so is Truthout.
Trump has made it no secret that he is planning a demolition-style attack on both specific communities and democracy as a whole, beginning on his first day in office. With over 25 executive orders and directives queued up for January 20, he’s promised to “launch the largest deportation program in American history,” roll back anti-discrimination protections for transgender students, and implement a “drill, drill, drill” approach to ramp up oil and gas extraction.
Organizations like Truthout are also being threatened by legislation like HR 9495, the “nonprofit killer bill” that would allow the Treasury Secretary to declare any nonprofit a “terrorist-supporting organization” and strip its tax-exempt status without due process. Progressive media like Truthout that has courageously focused on reporting on Israel’s genocide in Gaza are in the bill’s crosshairs.
As journalists, we have a responsibility to look at hard realities and communicate them to you. We hope that you, like us, can use this information to prepare for what’s to come.
And if you feel uncertain about what to do in the face of a second Trump administration, we invite you to be an indispensable part of Truthout’s preparations.
In addition to covering the widespread onslaught of draconian policy, we’re shoring up our resources for what might come next for progressive media: bad-faith lawsuits from far-right ghouls, legislation that seeks to strip us of our ability to receive tax-deductible donations, and further throttling of our reach on social media platforms owned by Trump’s sycophants.
We’re preparing right now for Trump’s Day One: building a brave coalition of movement media; reaching out to the activists, academics, and thinkers we trust to shine a light on the inner workings of authoritarianism; and planning to use journalism as a tool to equip movements to protect the people, lands, and principles most vulnerable to Trump’s destruction.
We urgently need your help to prepare. As you know, our December fundraiser is our most important of the year and will determine the scale of work we’ll be able to do in 2025. We’ve set two goals: to raise $104,000 in one-time donations and to add 1340 new monthly donors by midnight on December 31.
Today, we’re asking all of our readers to start a monthly donation or make a one-time donation – as a commitment to stand with us on day one of Trump’s presidency, and every day after that, as we produce journalism that combats authoritarianism, censorship, injustice, and misinformation. You’re an essential part of our future – please join the movement by making a tax-deductible donation today.
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