The Trump Organization was found guilty of 17 counts related to tax fraud, with a potential fine of up to $1.6 million.
One of a growing number of trials relating to ex-president Donald Trump reached its verdict this week. On Tuesday, a jury found his company, the Trump Organization, guilty of helping its executives dodge taxes. Every one of the seventeen charges, which included conspiracy and falsifying business records as well as simple fraud, came back guilty.
Donald Trump, who was not charged in this specific trial, was nonetheless the catalyst. New York authorities began a three-year investigation into Trump and his businesses which are ongoing, and it began as a probe into hush-money payments made on Trump’s behalf.
The case which became this specific trial is mostly built around testimony from the company’s former finance office, Allen Weisselberg, who has already pleaded guilty to illegal record keeping himself. He testified in exchange for a reduced sentence.
According to Donald Trump and his various mouthpieces, the investigation is a “Manhattan witch hunt,” meant to sabotage his 2024 presidential run.
“This case is unprecedented and involved no monetary gain to these two Corporations,” Trump said in a statement, adding: “New York City is a hard place to be ‘Trump.’”
Trump has also called recently for the “termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution” to reinstate him as president after his baseless claims of fraud in the 2020 election.
That stance isn’t going over well with anyone, even his own party.
“A former president’s companies now stand convicted of crimes. That is consequential,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said outside the courtroom. “It underscores that in Manhattan we have one standard of justice for all.”
The fine for 17 counts related to tax fraud will be at most a mere $1.6 million, pocket change for a company as successful as Donald Trump claims the Trump Organization has been.
Photo: lev radin / Shutterstock
