Citing that the information from which it had based services on “contain material discrepancies” accounting firm Mazars is distancing itself from the Trump Organization.
Former president Donald Trump’s longtime accounting firm informed his company last week that a decade’s worth of Trump’s financial statements “should no longer be relied upon” and suggested that any recipient of the documents be alerted, according to a copy of the letter filed in New York court filings.
In the letter, Mazars executive William J. Kelly voiced new concerns about the statements, which the firm helped Trump prepare and which have come under scrutiny recently by New York Attorney General Letitia James (D). James has alleged in civil filings that Trump used the statements to inflate the value of his properties and misstated his personal worth in representations to lenders.
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Kelly said Mazars reconsidered its work on the documents following questions raised by James’s office in a January filing.
“We have come to this conclusion based, in part, upon the filings made by the New York Attorney General on January 18, 2022, our own investigation, and information received from internal and external sources,” Kelly wrote in the Wednesday letter, addressed to Trump Organization attorney Alan Garten. “While we have not concluded that the various financial statements, as a whole, contain material discrepancies, based upon the totality of the circumstances, we believe our advice to you to no longer rely upon those financial statements is appropriate.”
Since at least 2002, accountant Donald Bender, a Mazars executive, has helped prepare Trump’s financial statements. In many instances, his firm attached a cover letter to the front of the documents explaining the firm’s role in assessing the value of his assets.
But in its letter last week, the accounting firm also cut off its relationship with the former president’s company, joining other banks, law firms and consulting firms that have vowed to no longer do business with the Trump Organization. In the letter, Kelly said a “non-waivable conflict of interest” prevented the firm from continuing to work for Trump.
The Mazars letter also mentioned one piece of tax business that it has said was unresolved regarding an apartment of Matthew Calamari Jr., son of longtime Trump security director and chief operating officer Matthew Calamari Sr.
Calamari Jr. was called to testify last year in a separate criminal case being brought by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and James regarding an alleged tax fraud scheme in which employees allegedly received untaxed payments, cars and apartments.
In the letter, Mazars said the Trump Organization did not, after repeated requests, provide information regarding Calamari’s apartment (and misspelled Calamari’s last name).
“We believe the only information left to complete those returns is the information regarding the Matt Calimari Jr. [sic] apartment,” Kelly wrote. “As you know, Donald Bender has been asking for this information for several months but has not received it.”
He also said the company still needed to file returns for former first lady Melania Trump and Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son.
The Trump Organization issued a statement in response: “While we are disappointed that Mazars has chosen to part ways, their February 9, 2022 letter confirms that after conducting a subsequent review of all prior statements of financial condition, Mazars’ work was performed in accordance with all applicable accounting standards and principles and that such statements of financial condition do not contain any material discrepancies. This confirmation effectively renders the investigations by the DA and AG moot.”
Mazars issued a statement saying that it was legally unable to discuss client relationships and that the firm remains “committed to fulfilling all of our professional and legal obligations.”
Read the letter to the Trump Organization from Mazars for yourself here:
Either he owes them a LOT of money, or they cut a deal to avoid prosecution of some sort.Report
Both can be true…Report
True.Report