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Donald Trump’s company impeded a grand jury investigation last year by repeatedly failing to turn over evidence in a timely fashion, leading to a secret contempt finding and a US$4000 (NZ$6200) fine, according to court records made public yesterday.
The Trump Organisation was found to have been “wilfully disobeying” four grand jury subpoenas and three court orders, to the detriment of Manhattan prosecutors who were left ill-prepared to question witnesses, Judge Juan Manuel Merchan ruled.
The subpoenas, issued in March, April, May and June 2021, preceded the Trump Organisation’s July 2021 indictment on criminal tax fraud charges for helping executives avoid taxes on company-paid perks. The company was convicted this month and faces a fine of up to $1.6 million.
The $4000 contempt fine was the maximum allowable by law.
It’s yet another kerfuffle involving Trump and allegations of mishandling or withholding records.
In April, a judge held Trump in contempt and fined him $110,000 for being slow to respond to a civil subpoena issued by New York’s attorney general.
The former president has also been under investigation for storing classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Merchan vaguely referenced the Trump Organisation’s contempt proceeding while presiding over the company’s criminal trial, saying he would wait until after it was over to unseal records related to an unspecified proceeding held last year.
That proceeding turned out to be the Trump Organisation’s closed-door contempt trial on October 7, 2021 and Merchan’s partially redacted 28-page ruling finding the company in contempt, which he issued on December 8, 2021.
While the company’s name was blacked out in the court record released on Tuesday (yesterday NZ), the details in the decision and the manner in which it was unsealed by the judge made it clear who was involved.
Manhattan prosecutors, frustrated with the company’s lack of compliance, had sought “coercive sanctions” of $60,000 per day, Merchan said.
Trump Organisation lawyers argued that the company had been providing a steady stream of records, at one point totalling more than 3.5 million pages of records, but Merchan said that was “just enough to fend off” the prosecution’s request for penalties “while never fully meeting any of the deadlines.”
Former President Donald Trump. The Trump Organisation was found to have been “wilfully disobeying” four grand jury subpoenas and three court orders in relation to a tax fraud probe, released court records show. Photo / AP
“When challenged [the company] provided one excuse after another,” Merchan wrote.
“At times it claimed it was impossible to meet deadlines because the demands were too voluminous, overbroad or vague. On other occasions, it blamed delays and omissions on human error” or technical issues.
In the recently concluded criminal tax fraud trial, two corporate entities at the Trump Organisation were convicted on December 6 of charges including charges of conspiracy and falsifying business records. Sentencing is scheduled for January 13. The defence said it will appeal. Trump himself was not on trial.
The company’s former finance chief, Allen Weisselberg, previously pleaded guilty to charges that he manipulated the company’s books to illegally reduce his taxes on $1.7 million in fringe benefits such as a Manhattan apartment and luxury cars. He testified in exchange for a promised five-month jail sentence. - AP
