Trump lawyer's histrionic letter accuses the Trump Organization monitor of greed, manipulation & bad faith
How many zeros did Robert just add to the civil fraud penalty?
Introduction
In November 2023, the Judge supervising NY AG Letitia James’ civil fraud case against Donald Trump and his two eldest sons enlarged his gag order to include Trump’s lawyers in the case. In the revision, Judge Arthur Engoron said Trump’s attorneys Christopher Kise, Clifford Robert, and Alina Habba had made “repeated, inappropriate remarks.” I do not know whether the lawyers had always been big-mouth assholes — or if this was a new skill learned at the knee of their client, a man who symbolizes feral, low-IQ aggression and a puerile lack of self-control.
Today, Trump’s legal team sent a letter to Engeron, lambasting Barbara Jones, the independent federal monitor agreed to by Trump. Jones, a highly regarded ex-Federal Judge, is overseeing the Trump Organization until the case is settled and the inevitable penalties paid. The letter was the Trump team’s reaction to a letter Jones sent to Engeron outlining the dubious and amateurish management of Trump’s businesses.
The defense’s 12-page letter, signed only by Robert, dismissed Jones’s findings as a maliciously motivated overreaction by a greedy woman looking to feather her nest at Trump’s expense. They also claimed the avaricious opportunist had only found a few clerical errors and some math mistakes.
In the letter, Robert adopts the scorched earth legal strategy that does nothing except add zeros to the penalties Trump must ultimately pay. So be it. If that is what Trump wants from his lawyers, it is no skin off my nose.
The letter
In his missive to Engeron, Robert wastes no time letting the ad hominem fly (the bolding is mine).
The January 26 Report, issued mere days before an expected decision, has only two obvious purposes: (1) ensure the Monitor continues to receive exorbitant fees (in excess of $2.6 million to date); and (2) fill the gaping hole in the Attorney General’s case, namely, that there is no basis to support continued oversight.
In case you missed the point, Robert adds,
Yet now, in an obvious, and bad faith, effort to manipulate innocuous accounting items into a narrative favoring her continued receipt of millions in excessive fees, the Monitor rehashes long-resolved issues and for the first time includes the unabashedly self-serving statement that “my observations suggest misstatements and errors may continue to occur, which could result in incorrect or inaccurate reporting of financial information to third parties.
Next, Robert keeps up the greed motif while adding a literary allusion that misses the mark. I have no idea if Robert has seen Les Mis, but judging by his analogy, it seems unlikely he has read Victor Hugo.
Further oversight is unwarranted and will only unjustly enrich the Monitor as she engages in some “Javert” like quest against the Defendants.
In a reputational fight, Trump loses to almost everyone. Against Barbara Jones, who has a stellar reputation, he would not make it past the weigh-in. Jones, who we should note the Senate vetted during her confirmation, served as a US District Judge for 18 years. She is now a partner of Bracewell LLC.
Beyond her bona fides I doubt that, as a partner of an international law firm boasting 350 lawyers on the payroll, Jones lacks cash. After all, she is not the one with two multi-million dollar judgments in her in-box — which themselves will be overshadowed by the nine-figure penalty about to be announced by Engeron.
After getting his personal attacks on record, Robert claims that all Jones found were mere bagatelles. Yet he cannot help revisiting the money. And in doing so, he likely reveals what is upsetting his notoriously cheap boss.
The January 26 Report [Jones’ letter to Engeron] just rehashes resolved issues and demonstrates fully that the only items she has been able to identify in exchange for $2.6 million in fees are a handful of immaterial and irrelevant discrepancies and math errors. The fact the Defendants have been forced to pay millions for a process which reveals there are simply no issues, there is no financial reporting misconduct, and no fraud is truly shocking. That the Monitor seeks to now perpetuate this folly is beyond the pale.
It is beyond my expertise to back Jones. However, one matter alone rebuts Robert’s attempt to downplay the severity of Trump’s actions. Jones uncovered a listed, yet non-existent, $48 million loan that Trump seems to have made up as a tax dodge.
It does not take financial acumen to look at Trump’s history of dissembling and correctly assume that Robert is making a mole-hill out of a mountain. After all, Trump claimed he had done nothing wrong despite admitting he had run a charity scam resulting in a $2 million penalty. And he was equally dismissive of the fraud charges against his misnomered ‘university’ — while having to pay $25 million to restitute his victims.
Also, if the Trump Organization’s missteps were picayune and arithmetic, why does Robert need a histrionic over-the-top assault on the monitor? The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
Robert goes on to say that the Trumps cannot be guilty of anything because they are cooperating.
Moreover, until now, each of the five prior Reports [issued by Jones] expressly recognizes the Defendants’compliance with the Court’s directives and expressly appreciates their ongoing cooperation.
Nice try. Cooperation and compliance with an investigation is not cause for absolution. A serial killer showing the cops where he buried the bodies does not lead to a verdict of ‘not guilty’. It may garner a reduction in the penalty (no death penalty for multiple murders), but the crime is still the crime.
Then Robert returns to the thrice-plowed soil.
However, as noted, the Monitor now twists immaterial accounting items into a narrative favoring her continued appointment, and thereby the continued receipt of millions of dollars in excessive fees.
I cannot blame the reader for being as bored reading this as I am writing it. But Robert is still not done — not even close. He adds:
expensive and meaningless ongoing oversight.
In sum, the only possible purpose in this post-trial collective of immaterial items is simply to bolster the Monitor’s disingenuous and self-interested efforts to frame the Defendants in a false light to sustain her continued appointment.
to justify her exorbitant fees.
But where, as here, more than one year of detailed and expensive oversight reveals not a single instance of the alleged misconduct the Monitor was expressly appointed to uncover
The Monitor is not entitled to collect millions in fees so she can substitute her judgment for that of the actual lender
Again, the Monitor is not entitled to collect millions in fees so she can substitute her judgment for that of the actual lender.
It is shameful that the Monitor has charged the Defendants millions in fees to identify such a ridiculous item!
At this point, Robert takes a break from complaining about Jones’ past and future compensation with a bit of gratuitous ad hominem.
The Monitor’s disingenuity here is therefore appalling.
This statement is false and again calls into question the Monitor’s veracity and competence.
This level of disingenuity is truly alarming.”
Robert concludes with a return to Jones’ fees while dismissing her findings.
As noted above, the Monitor has thus far been paid over $2.6 million in the past 14-months to “uncover” seven (7) immaterial disclosure items, three (3) irrelevant inconsistencies and five (5) clerical errors. Now, after representing that the Defendants were fully cooperative and compliant during this entire time period, the Monitor desperately seeks to justify the continued receipt of millions of dollars in fees going forward.
He then returns to the insults
Setting aside her self-serving hyperbole, the Monitor’s own findings simply do not support or provide any evidentiary basis for continued oversight.
“Self-serving hyperbole”? Let that serve as a perfect example of “projection.” Not only is Robert’s letter stuffed with the like, but his client has based his business and political career on substance-free exaggeration, empty braggadocio, and vacuous puffery designed to do nothing but bolster his bottom line, salve his fragile ego and mask his massive inferiority complex.
I do have one question. How much are Robert’s fees?