Heather Cox Richardson is a historian who blogs about current events from an historical perspective. Her blog is called “Letters from an American.”
She wrote:
February 14, 2022
It appears there was a reason for the former president’s unhinged rant of yesterday suggesting that members of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign had spied on him and that “in a stronger period of time in our country, this crime would have been punishable by death.”
Trump is likely unhappy because of a letter his accountants, the firm Mazars, sent to the Trump Organization’s chief legal officer on February 9. That letter came to light today when New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is investigating the finances of the Trump Organization, filed new court documents to explain why she wanted to question Trump and his adult children under oath.
The Mazars letter told the Trump organization that Trump’s financial statements from years ending June 2011 through June 2020 could not be relied upon to be accurate, and that it should tell anyone relying on those documents—banks, for example—that they were not reliable. It went on to say there was now a “non-waivable conflict of interest” with the Trump Organization that meant that Mazars was “not able to provide new work product” for the organization.
Lawyer George Conway interpreted the letter for non-lawyers. He tweeted:
“‘decision regarding the financial…statements’=they are false because you lied
‘totality of the circumstances’=the D.A. is serious
‘non-waivable conflict of interest’=we are now on team D.A.
‘not able to provide new work product’=sorry we’re not going to jail for you”
That is, it appears that Mazars is now working with James’s office. Last month, James’s office alleged that there is “significant” evidence that the Trump Organization manipulated asset valuations to obtain loans and avoid taxes. Now Trump’s accountants appear to be working with her office and have said that Trump’s past ten years of financial statements “should not be relied upon.”
This will probably be a problem for the banks that have loaned money to Trump. Their officers have likely relied on the accuracy of the information Trump provided, and according to lawyer Tristan Snell, the lenders could now call in loans early or otherwise change the terms of their agreements.
The Trump Organization jumped on the statements in the Mazars letter that “we have not concluded that the various financial statements, as a whole, contain material discrepancies,” and that “Mazars performed its work in accordance with professional standards” to claim that it is exonerated from any wrongdoing. “This confirmation,” it wrote, “effectively renders the investigations by the DA and AG moot.”
NBC legal analyst Glenn Kirschner tweeted: “Trump Org[anization] tries to spin it as a complete exoneration (& G[eorge] Orwell blushes).” Orwell was famous for identifying “doublespeak,” language that reverses the meaning of words.
But while the fear of what it means for him that his accountant has dropped him might have inspired Trump’s rants about executing Hillary, the same does not hold for Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH), who on Sunday’s Fox & Friends broadcast agreed with Trump that Clinton’s aides had spied on him, and implied the punishment for such alleged espionage should be death.
The normalization of violence as part of the mainstream Republican Party is cause for concern.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
GOP Scripture: Opposition Research (by others) is a crime punishable by death. The GOPs own Opposition research is an ordinary and necessary part of the political process. Trump 3:16
Steve, thanks for that comment. I was thinking of adding to the post that o presidential candidate in the US had ever been put to death for whatever it is Trump claims. This is serious psycho talk. Just plain crazy.
If the prosecution succeeds, Trump will almost certainly be put to debt.
And maybe put to Rikers too.
SDP: “put to debt” A pun to end all puns.
Let’s also not forget about Trump’s campaign lawyer Joseph diGenova in the days following the election who said that Christopher Krebs, the cybersecurity official fired for doubting Trump’s voter fraud myths by saying the election was the most secure in history, should be “taken out at dawn and shot.” I just finished “In the Garden of Beasts” by Erik Larson and, good lord, the historical parallels are alarming and should be heeded. If der Trumpenfuhrer runs again and is either re-elected or “re-installed,” would we have our own Night of the Long Knives under him? I’d say so given this rhetoric.
There is nothing normal about the GOP, it’s a hellish malformed death cult that has been coopted by a bumbling, bloated conman and scam artist. And no, please don’t say that the Democrats are just as bad and are the same, not even close. As disappointing as Democrats can be, people like AOC and Elizabeth Warren give us some hope for progressive legislation.
This ProPublica investigation of Trump’s accountants is fascinating.
https://www.propublica.org/article/meet-the-shadowy-accountants-who-do-trumps-taxes-and-help-him-seem-richer-than-he-is
I highly recommend following Heather Cox Richardson on Facebook. Her commentaries are clear, concise, and factually supported. She does a weekly live show and answers questions submitted by readers. It’s time very well spent
“exonerated” = the only 5-syllable word T knows
Took him 3 days to memorize it.
Actually, he has also used (and promoted) hydroxychloroquine, which ha six syllables.
But I suspect he just read it from a teleprompter.
But the mere fact that he could pronounce it is impressive and worthy of some points.
And Ivermectin, of course
So Mazars cut a deal with the DA so that they don’t have to face any kind of prosecution for their own wrong doing. That’s pretty far up the financial food chain. I’m impressed! Let’s just hope that more comes out of this than just theT-ump thing and there can be some meaningful restructuring of the whole financial system that is supposed to work for ALL Americans and not just those already flush with wealth.
“A stronger period of time…” When was that? I never studied that. I studied Jacksonian America, the Old South, The Progressive Period. But never the Stronger Era. Wonder when that was.
haaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!
Exactly, RT!!!
not able to provide new work product’=sorry we’re not going to jail for you”
Unlike the accountants for Enron, they ain’t no fools.
lol. exactly
Diane: Such gross distortion of reality cannot last. At some point Trump’s sharpie will run out of ink. Then the question becomes: How many people have to get hurt or die before it melts from its own heat?
I love George Conway’s showing us how to untwist Trumpian double-speak . . . sort of like charter schools referring to themselves as “public education,” or Putin claiming that his buildup of troops is Russia defending itself against Ukrainian encroachment.
Or (from another thread here) the religious right referring to themselves as Christian nationalists (=white supremacist authoritarians); who claim Bibles will be burned in one breath, while in another banning history books; and claiming their rights while trampling on others’.
Also, perhaps there are lessons to be learned by some oligarch/funders who have before them, in Trump’s accounting firm, the dead-end-run of avoiding truth for decades while padding their bank accounts. Good luck with that.
The tea leaves to read, however, are not in Trump, but in the evidence of vast absences in Trump’s so-called base, aka: in every American who still supports him, and in the utter demoralization of the GOP: to them, I would say “feel the heat . . . that’s you melting.” CBK
Right now, the Trumper I despise most is Josh Mandel, running for Senate in Ohio. Because he is Jewish and he embarrasses me.
Diane: ” embarrassed . . . Josh Mandel, because he is Jewish.”
Just more proof that it’s about human absences and failures and not about any particular religion as such, especially not long-term religions. I know many Catholics, as well as Methodists/Baptists, etc., and wholly secular people, who hail from many different ideological political camps and remain within their chosen religious institution.
. . . and then there is the capitalist-only mentality that, in many cases, uses religious institutions to cover whatever nefarious goals, poor things, that they have identified themselves with, all the while carrying their religious banners. Here, “religious” equates to “hypocritical.”
The nice thing about long-term religious institutions is that we have a founder or founders or very old texts that we can hold present behaviors to account with: “How does THIS square with what you are up to?” Getting their attention is quite another point, however, as you well know. CBK
He’s a JINO.
He ran a campaign of sleaze against Sherrod Brown and learned one lesson only: be more outrageous with your lies.
There is a big irony in all of this.
If Trump had never run for and become President, he would probably never have become the focus of legal attention for his business dealings.
Like many other (supposed) billionaires who probably operate the same way, he would have gotten away with everything.
I suspect that is precisely why most billionaires don’t have any interest in running for President
Also, probably too many Jeffrey Epstein associations in the closet.
Billionaires tend to lurk in the shadows and lead from their bank accounts. Trump is an egomaniac. He has to be front and center with his ego stroking rallies. Now he’s in the spotlight, and I hope he enjoys the heat.
Billionaires are vampires
Lurking in the shade
Building up their Empires
Trying to evade
Brilliant rays of sunshine
Melting them like mints
Sitting by the fireside
Causing them to wince
Where there is heat, there is also light.
And the latter is the biggest problem for Trump.
He’s like a Vampire in that regard.
He can stand the heat, but not the light.
If Trump had never run for and become President, he would probably never have become the focus of legal attention for his business dealings.
Melania knew this from Day 1–that this was an incredibly stupid move. She was reportedly furious that he decided to do this and horrified when he actually won.
The truth of this is the tragedy thereof. White collar crime should land people deeper in prison than any other, and it should be more deeply investigated. But most white collar crime is ignored.
yup. Good lawyers are expensive.
I suspect the Secret Service has just doubled the detail that guards former President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary.
Trump is infamous for his hate filled, vile lies that shift the attention off of his crimes as he invents crimes for those he targets with the goal of getting the Media’s News off of him and to help get the message out that will enrage his zombie MAGGOT mob to start threatening innocent people again.
And, according to People Magazine, “Noting that his daughter no longer had Secret Service protection after he left office, Clinton told PEOPLE that he took his own steps.
“We did get security for her, headed by a former Secret Service agent, for quite a while after 9/11,” he said. “I was really worried then.”
Chelsea, now 41, was at that point living in New York and her dad said that it would have been obvious had she not been protected.
As informative as Richardson’s journal was on the day quoted here, it is nowhere near as eyepopping as the Feb 10 entry about Trump and his mishandling of classified documents. That the press would spend the time it did on Hillary’s email and then pass through all of Trump’s criminal behavior quickly is nothing short of irresponsible. Today’s media are led by the nose through a morass of manipulations.
There is widespread agreement among legal experts that the President has the power to declassify documents at will., So I suspect that any attempt to prosecute a president for mishandling
Classified documents would probably eventually fail at the Supreme Court.
It seems to me the focus on potential illegal business dealings and tax evasion is the way to catch the former king.
After all, that’s how they caught Al Capone.
This is still an issue, SomeDAM, because Trump did not in fact declassify the classified material that he took from the White House. If he did, you could submit a freedom of information request and get copies.
He could always claim he declassified the material on the fly. And it all comes down to the Supreme Court in the end and we know how that would turn out.
This avenue is doomed to fail.
But the idea of Trump or any president filing a freedom of information request for documents that they wrote is very funny.
I’d love to read the procedural rules governing T’s method of declassification!😀
The normalization of violence as part of the mainstream Republican Party is cause for concern.
If the Republicans win the House and Senate this year, hold onto those wins and add the presidency in 2024, this will become a matter to which “You ain’t seen nothing yet” applies.
It is only through violence that a minority party can maintain its governance and grift.
Meanwhile, voter suppression by Republicans proceeds apace. In states where the new voting laws have been enacted, absentee ballots and voting by Democrats are both WAY down. So, the laws are serving their intended purpose, and once the Republicans control it all–the House, the Senate, the Presidency, the Supreme Court–they aren’t going to let it go again. That’s how a failing minority party persists–by using trickery to seize control and then violence to maintain it–by rising Phoenix-like from the ashes of democracy.
This is actually the most bracing of the trends in political discourse. The mention of violence is as rampant as the Lets go Brandon banners (one is in my neighbor’s yard). Violence on the right is justified by violence on the left (often fictitious, better watch those antifa tomato throwers)
When it happens here, it won’t be taken quietly. There will be protests. These will be met with violence, the violence with escalated protests, the escalated protests with escalated violence. If they seize total control, extreme violence will be the inevitable result. Completely predictable. And beyond what even the worst of them currently imagine.
Yeah, better watch those nefarious Moms in Yellow Shirts. They might start lighting sage and sprinkling areas with Patchouli oil and writing letters to the editor!
Not to mentioning linking arms and singing “Kumbaya.” Better bring out the riot squads, the pepper spray, and the tear gas!!!!
This is essential to lay the groundwork to lull people to gradually accept fascism. In a normal world, violence is, or at least should be, a measure of last resort. In fascism it is a normal part of public policy, often as a measure of first–or at least close to immediate–resort. Normalizing it now, getting a mass of the population to accept it as a matter course, makes everything easier.
yup
The historical distortion of and recent invocations of the second amendment are part of this. Violence will not just be codified in public policy, it will become a part of daily life for some through over acts of intimidation.
The person in Georgia responsible for the actual mechanism of voting for 2020 pleaded with the Trump administration to stop with the false accusations of voter fraud because “somebody is going to get killed.” Then January 6th happened. I hope a bloodbath in our streets is not in the future, but Trump and his minions certainly seem to be advocating one.
There are reports that McConnell has been holding close-door meetings with other Republicans about how to prevent Trump from running in 2024, which would be a disaster for the Party, as he would almost certainly lose again. So, I suspect that there is a lot more going on behind the scenes. The fracture in the Republican Party over Trump is big and growing. Interesting, and a source of hope.
And I can’t help but wonder whether the two things–the Mazar letter and the Republicans’ Trump problem–aren’t related.
I suspect that the smarter Republicans–we are definitely not talking Marjorie Taylor Greene,, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, and their ilk here–know that this is their last chance to seize it all and that they aren’t going to be able to do that with Trump–that they need Trump 2.0, Trump Mini-me–a smarter version but with the same fascist instincts.
The “fracture” of the republican party is a sideshow, as far as I’m concerned. They always come together like the substance of the Terminator when it is time to get down to business. And their business will be fascism, regardless of the guise. Something Democrats will never figure out.
If the Republicans are smart, they nominate Youngkin/Mace, put as pretty and benign a face on it as possible during the campaign, win in a landslide, and then continue business as usual in third-to-fourth out of six gears. They’ll rev it up into a smooth operating machine by 2026. That “fracture” will disappear quickly and George and Kellyanne, among others, will reap all kinds of rewards.
Yes. In the long term, Trump will be rehabilitated as a mythical founder, as Reagan has been–all the racism and idiocy forgotten. But right now, the fracture is real in this sense–that some, like McConnell, recognize that they need to put a prettier, smarter, more appealing face on their fascism in order to win in 2022 and 2024. But that’s where it ends. It’s a matter of means to the same end. McConnell is not less fascist than Trump. He’s just more adept at conniving. Trump, for all his mass appeal (IKR?) is an amateur fascist. DeSatan is the real thing. Same fascist values, but smarter.
DeSatanist is smarter than Trump, but that is not saying much.
I’m not sure it puts me at ease to know that McConnell is working at this. I don’t believe that Trump has any intention of running. He is playing the grift as long as it will work and trying to intimidate various attorney generals by unleashing his rabid followers. Trump has some real problems developing in New York and he knows he is losing options to fight back.