Mazars USA notified the ex-president’s company that a decade’s worth of its financial statements could ‘not be relied upon’
Mazars USA, a longtime accounting firm for the Trump Organization, has severed ties with former President Donald Trump’s enterprise. On top of that, the company notified the Trump Organization that its financial statements for 2011 through 2020 “Should not be relied on anymore” as evidenced by court documents released on Monday.
In a February 9 letter to the Trump Organization, Mazars’ General Counsel, William J. Kelly, explained that a decade’s worth of documents were deemed unreliable “This is partly based on filings made by the New York attorney general on January 18, 2022.” as well as the accounting company’s “Including information from both internal and externe sources.”
And while Kelly admitted that the financial statements did not seem to “contain material discrepancies,” the accounting firm still advised the Trump Organization not to rely on those, citing the “The sum of all the circumstances.”
The letter goes on to notify the former president’s company that Mazars USA was not “Any new product or service that the Trump Organization may require.” on account of a “Conflict of interests that are not resolvable” between the two.
The message ended up in the public domain on February 14, when it was released as part of court documents related to a civil investigation by New York State Attorney General Letitia James into the Trump Organization’s business practices.
James suspects the former president’s business of misrepresenting the value of its assets on multiple occasions to get financial benefits.
As part of her effort to get Trump’s company to produce outstanding documents, she filed the Mazars Letter.
On Monday, James described the Mazars letter as backing up the legitimacy of the investigation, arguing that “Evidence continues to mount proving that Donald J. Trump, and his Trump Organization, used misleading and fraudulent financial statements in order to gain economic benefits.”
James launched the probe back in 2019 after Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen testified to Congress that his former boss had manipulated his company’s property values to lower his real estate tax obligations and obtain bank loans.
The Trump Organization may face severe financial consequences if it is proven that the Trump Organization has committed wrongdoing.
Trump, for his part, has maintained his innocence all along, and described James’ probe as politically motivated.
Commenting on the Mazars letter, Trump Organization spokesperson Kimberly Benza said that “We are sorry Mazars decided to end their relationship.” the letter, in her view, confirmed that the “Statements of financial condition are free from material errors.” According to Benza, “This confirmation renders effective the investigation by the DA (District Attorney) AG (Attorney General) moot.”
[ad_2]
