- Monday marks the beginning of juror selection for the Trump Organization tax-fraud case.
- Trump could be barred from doing business with federal agencies if his company is convicted.
- His ‘exorbitant billing’ of Secret Service agents who protected him at his resorts could be ended by a ban.
Donald Trump’s golf-resort and real-estate empires will be on trial in Manhattan Monday. This is the start of proceedings in a low level corporate fraud case that has high financial stakes.
There’s another threat, however. This is something that government spending watchdogs have been advocating for years.
Conviction could prompt the government to bar the Trump Organization from doing business as a federal contractor, including cutting off the spigot of Trump’s lucrative — and critics say exorbitant — billing of Secret Service agents who stay at his properties while protecting the former president and his family.
Trump isn’t the perfect government contractor, as it stands, watchdogs claim, after his numerous brushes with fraud allegations. Federal regulations require“An impeccable standard in conduct.”
The regulations also recommend that companies are “debarred” or blacklisted for any business-related crime such as “forgery and bribery”, destruction or falsification records, making false claims. [and] tax evasion.”
Steven L. Schooner, a professor of law in government procurement at George Washington University Law School, said that a conviction in this payroll-tax-fraud trial would only increase Trump’s blacklisting calls.
Schooner has been vocal in his complaintsOver the years, the feds have continued to do business alongside Trump despite the two impeachments. An incendiary about the Inauguration, questions over His Trump International Hotel DC, and the forced destruction of Trump UniversityThe Trump FoundationThe same New York attorney general’s Office is now alleging He pocketed $250 MillionThrough financial fraud
Add on Recent news that the Trump Organization had billed the Secret Service more than $ 1.4 million to stay at Trump properties during the former president’s time in office.
Trump received $1,185 per person for a single night in a DC hotel. Once signed, the Secret Service charged Trump $1,185 per day. A $179,000 contract to rent a golf cart At his New Jersey golf resort, Bedminster.
Schooner stated, “The rules that apply for typical government contractors have never been applied to Trump Organization, which frankly, is the most depressing, pernicious aspect in this pathetic saga.”
“It’s as brain-boggling, as it is heartbreaking,” he stated about Trump’s apparent unwillingness for the government to stop spending taxpayer dollars.
Mercedes-Benz for His-and Hers
A Manhattan jury will be seated in Manhattan starting Monday to determine whether the Trump Organization defrauded the tax authorities by paying executives compensation in the form of untaxed benefits like apartments and cars.
Allen Weisselberg, former Trump CFO, will be key witness in the prosecution against the company After pleading guiltyThe August tax-dodge plan
Weisselberg confessed to having earned $1.7 million in tax-free perks during 15 years. This included Mercedes-Benz luxury cars, his wife and free use of Trump-branded apartments along the Hudson River, and tuition for his grandkids’ private schools.
Prosecutors allege that Weisselberg’s annual income of $940,000 per year was reflected in the Trump Organization headquarters at Trump Tower on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. The cars, apartments, and tuition were all part of Weisselberg’s Trump Organization headquarters.
Trump Organization was charged with repeatedly and knowingly filing incorrect tax documents in order to avoid paying payroll taxes on extra compensation. This saved money for the company as well as its executives.
Weisselberg must pay $2 million back and spend five months in jail as part of his plea.
Trump Organization could face severe tax penalties, plus fines up to $1.6million. Reuters has calculated, if convicted of the three tax-fraud counts and six other counts in their indictment — all of them low-level felonies.
Their lawyers have countered that the Manhattan District Attorney’s office — for decades run by Democrats — is pursuing a penny-ante fringe benefits case out of political bias against Trump, an argument the trial judge, state Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, has barred the defense from raising at trial.
A case for “debarment”
Trump’s government contracts are being challenged by those who have been hounded by recent Secret Service billing revelations, and the Manhattan trial.
Noah Bookbinder, president and CEO of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics Washington, stated that “The Trump Organization was basically gouging both the federal government and federal taxpayers”.
Insider reported that he said, “If there is a criminal conviction it’s difficult to imagine how federal government could not at that point debar them.”
Schooner and Bookbinder (procurement law professors) wrote to the government asking for a resumption of all ties with Trump and his company’s senior officers. October 2021
It was addressed at the federal General Services Administration which oversees contracts and government agencies which have done business with Trump. This includes the Department of Homeland Security that oversees the Secret Service.
Sean Moultin, senior analyst at the Project on Government Oversight (another ethics and accountability watchdog organization that signed the letter), stated, “Our position hasn’t changed.”
Insider reported that convictions of the organization would result in debarment.
Insider reached out to the Trump Organization and GSA representatives for clarification.
A Secret Service spokesperson said that they would not speculate about a Trump Organization debarment and only stated that they would respond directly to the congressional inquiry into Trump’s billing.
Secret Service is a hard target
Watchdogs agree that Trump’s Secret Service billing has been a difficult target.
Federal acquisition regulations allow agencies to continue using blacklisted companies if they can prove that there are “compelling reasons” for doing business with the contractor.
In the case of the Secret Service, that would mean saying there’s no way to effectively protect Trump and his family without staying at whichever of his resorts he’s currently living at — including his winter favorite, Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, and his summer favorite, the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
Schooner stated, “The agency can just say that they need the contractor.”
Barring the unlikelihood of a cash-free solution — Trump letting the Secret Service “stay at our properties for free,” as Eric Trump once promised, or forgoing Secret Service protection voluntarily, as Richard Nixon did — Trump’s Secret Service spigot may well remain open, watchdogs acknowledge.
But, Trump being blacklisted would stop future self-dealing on other types contracts.
According to POGO’s Moultin, the Secret Service may be able “to make some kind of claim that they are unique” in having to be near the former president.
Moultin stated that he still recalls Trump promoting a G-7 conference at his property.
Mick Mulvaney, acting White House chief-of-staff, announced that the US would host 2020 G-7 Summit at Trump National Doral in Miami. an idea quickly abandonedAfter critics accused him of self-dealing, and other ethics violations.
In the same year, Mike Pence, then Vice President of USA, stayed in a Trump hotel on a trip to Ireland. Found 180 milesAir Force crews were able to enjoy lodging during any of his official engagements Trump’s luxurious golf resortScotland
Moultin stated that if there was a Trump administration (or just a future Republican government), it could bring up the idea of having official events at his properties.
“I believe that a debarment could still be used in this situation.”
