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Trump's Mazars accountant holds the key to his being indicted for federal racketeering: biographer
February 21, 2022 8:04AM ET
In a column for the New York Daily News, Donald Trump biographer David Cay Johnston predicted the former president, his three oldest children,and the Trump Organization's Allen Weisselberg will likely face federal racketeering charges now that the accountant who oversaw their financials at the Mazars accounting firm has taken an immunity deal.
According to the investigative journalist, Trump's legal travails, which grew exponentially worse last week, may force him into bankruptcy and the loss of all his assets leaving him almost penniless.
But the greatest danger Trump faces, Johnston explained, may lie in what Mazars accountant Donald Bender tells investigators.
Writing "the walls are closing in" on Trump, he explained, "Then there’s the danger to Trump from Donald Bender, the Mazars accountant who prepared Trump’s tax returns. Bender has turned state’s evidence. He testified before the grand jury in the Manhattan district attorney’s criminal inquiry, which under state law gave Bender immunity from criminal charges."
"The Manhattan grand jury working with District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Investigators are digging through five million pages of documents that Trump tried to withhold, going all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court twice, only to be firmly slapped down both times," he continued before adding, "I anticipate Trump, the Trump Organization, his three oldest children, Trump’s chief finance man, Allen Weisselberg and perhaps others will be charged with running a racketeering enterprise."
"A tax charge or charges will almost certainly be embedded in any state racketeering charge, but tax won’t be a stand-alone criminal charge," he continued before suggesting, "The reason is that while Trump claims to be the greatest tax expert of all time, his lawyers would dismiss that as Trump just puffing up his reputation. Lawyers could say he just did what his advisers told him was right. Expect Bender and witnesses from Mazars to say Trump ordered them to do this and that against their advice."
You can read more here.
You can watch David Cay Johnston on MSNBC from this morning below:
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