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Tag Archives: Trump Organization
Supreme Court — Trump’s Position Loses; Trump wins
I will have further details on what the Supreme Court held about Trump’s taxes when I have a chance to digest everything from yesterday. But in practical terms, there are two ways to view the decision.
On the one hand, Trump’s current arguments were soundly rejected by a 7-2 vote in both cases. The president is not above the law and has to respond to proper subpoenas (with some caveats about the needs of courts to consider the burden on the presidency and the necessity of the subpoena).
On the other hand, Trump’s tax returns are still secret for the next several months. In all of the cases, as I feared, the Supreme Court sent the case back to the lower courts to take another look at the motions to quash in light of the Supreme Court’s instructions.
Posted in Donald Trump, Elections, Judicial
Also tagged business records, subpoenas, tax returns
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Supreme Court and Trump’s Financial Records
As I noted on Friday, the Supreme Court is nearing the end of its terms and has, at least, two opinion days for this week. Whether the two days will see all of the opinions or some will be issued after the Independence Day celebrations remains to be seen.
While there are many cases that will have impact long after this year, five cases (representing four argument slots) could directly impact this election. Two of them — the Faithless Elector cases — are about the election itself. But the other three — involving the Trump financial records — could shape the campaign.
While, technically, there are three cases, the Supreme Court consolidated argument on the two cases involving subpoenas issued by Congressional committees and are likely to issue one opinion on those two cases. The other case involves a state grand jury subpoena and will probably result in a separate opinion.
Posted in Donald Trump, Judicial
Also tagged bank records, financial records, subpoenas
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Running Government Like a Business
Conservatives often put out the mantra that we need to run government like a business. The problem with that concept is that there are many different business models. What it takes for a business to be successful depends to a large degree on the products that the business made and the structure of that business. For the past several years, we have seen what happens when the government is run like the Trump Organization, and it has not been pretty.
The business model of the Trump Organization had several major features. First, and most importantly, it is a privately held organization in which Donald Trump is the primary owner. In short, the Trump Organization was for over forty years the alter ego of Donald Trump. He had complete control and did not answer to anybody. Second, in the commercial real estate business, debt is not a bad thing. It is not unusual for the purchase of a building to be financed with large loans (i.e. mortgages) that are refinanced when they come due (with very little payments made toward the principal and the debt only fully paid off when the building is sold). Third, and pretty much unique to the Trump Organization, the far-flung nature of the holdings meant that the business rarely worked with other companies — beyond its bankers — on repeat occasions. This lack of an on-going relationship with local contractors meant that Trump was able to break deals with the companies that he hired to work on his properties without having to worry about the need to make future deals with the same contractors.
Over the past several months, we have seen Trump repeatedly return to his practices from his time as a high risk real estate developer. He has treated the U.S. government as if he were the sole owner making decisions for his personal benefit rather than the good of the country. In particular, he has used his power to make the U.S. government and foreign governments deal with the Trump Organization — rerouting government flights so that U.S. personnel have to stay at Trump properties while staying overseas and he has proposed holding international summits at Trump properties.
Posted in Donald Trump, GOP, Rant
Also tagged Climate Change, Deficits, Impeachment, Kurds, Trump Self-dealing, Ukraine
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Trump, Inc., for President
For all that is different about this year’s presidential race, the one that, for the most part, has been overlooked is that Trump is the head of a closely-held family business. For lawyers, there is a big difference in how we look at publicly traded companies and those that are privately held. If a company is publicly traded, it has to file SEC reports and answer to a diverse group of stockholders. While officers and directors can engage in self-dealing, there is a clear separateness between them and the corporation. When a company is owned by a single person or family, lawyers are more likely to take a very close look at whether the owners treat the corporation’s assets as their personal assets or if they maintain an appropriate degree of separation. In other words, we look at whether the corporation and the person are truly separate or whether the owner treats the business as his alter ego.
Everything that we have seen in this race so far tends to indicate that Donald Trump is the Trump Organization and that the Trump Organization is Donald Trump. Throughout the primary, Trump held a lot of events at Trump Organization properties (with Trump Organization products lavishly displayed), This week at the convention, we saw this overlap in the news reports on Melania’s speech. Aside from what the plagiarism says about Trump Organization business practices and what that say about how Trump would govern, the bigger concern is how the Trump Organization just delegated somebody to work on the speech. (Given that Trump is the owner of the Trump Organization, the campaign laws issues is easily managed. Trump just has the Organization give him a dividend which he contributes to the campaign and the campaign pays back to the Organization — a mere paper transaction that complies with the law.)
If, before the election, Trump sees the Organization as a tool to further his personal ambitions, what happens after the election? Traditionally, a president (or other politician)with significant holdings puts them into a blind trust. In theory, because the politician does not know what changes the trustee may make to the portfolio, this practice prevents them from making decisions to benefit their personal stock holdings (e.g., deciding to change weapons acquisitions from the army to the air force because they hold Boeing stock). With Trump, there is simply no conceivable way that Trump could divest himself of his holdings in the Trump Organization. More importantly, while Trump may step down from day-to-day management, the new CEO will be one of his children (and we have already seen the key role that his children play in advising him). The first time that Trump tries to play hardball with another foreign leader, the logical response will be for that foreign leader to start talking about what that country could do to help or hurt the Trump Organization. If Trump wants China to take a tougher stance on piracy of movies and software, China may offer a good site for a Trump Casino in Hong Kong. Trump wants Mexico to do more on drug trafficking, Mexico may impose some new regulations that effect the Trump property in Baja. When the Trump Organization’s interests diverge from the U.S. interests, whom will Trump favor? The risk that Trump will sacrifice the U.S. to favor his company is simply to large for any reasonable person to take.
Posted in Donald Trump, Money in Politics
Also tagged Donald Trump
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