This has not been a good week for Donald Trump, and next week may be worse.
Alex Wagner talked last night about the ripple effect of Trump being dumped by his accountants.
"In theory, Deutsche Bank could decide the (hotel) deal is broken and call in repayment of that 170 million dollar loan right now. That is how any normal bank would work, anyway. In other words, thanks to this report from the House Oversight Committee today, not only could Donald Trump potentially lose his ability to sell his D.C. hotel for a handsome profit, he may be on the hook for a giant loan on that very same hotel much sooner then he planned," she said.
"Joining us now is Virginia Democratic congressman Gerry Connolly, senior chair of the House Committee, one of the authors of that letter that was sent to the General Services Administration today regarding Trump's D.C. hotel. Congressman Connolly is also the chairman of the subcommittee on government operations."
"So, your committee has asked the GSA, General Services Administration, to consider terminating Trump's lease on the federal property on which the Trump hotel in D.C. stands. Why do you think that the GSA has the right to terminate that lease?"
"This goes back six years. I felt, six years ago, that GSA should not have given the lease in the first place. Once President Trump became President Trump, he was disqualified from benefiting from the terms of the lease, financially. GSA had, initially, in the fall of 2016, in the fall, that he would be disqualified if elected. After his election, they changed their minds. They never gave a proper explanation to our committee, at that time.
"The letter that Chairwoman Maloney and I sent today said, basically, asking GSA to re-examine the validity of that lease, given what Mazar has done, which is, essentially, to invalidate ten years of financial statements that they prepared for him, said that no one should rely on that," Connolly said, saying it should "raise alarm bells all over Washington and New York as to the reliability of the Trump Organization and Trump personally in any kind of financial statement."
He reminded Wagner that Michael Cohen, Trump's former attorney, testified before the oversight committee that Trump committed fraud.
"He inflated the value of properties to qualify for loans, to finance those properties and other investments. but he deflated the value of his assets when it came time to paying taxes. So, the state of New York and the federal government, both of those things are potentially criminal in nature. I believe that the Trump Hotel might very well be, ironically, the key that unlocks the whole enterprise, which resembles, in many ways, a classic criminal enterprise," he said.
"If Trump's company somehow does manage to sell the lease on the Trump Hotel in D.C., Trump could net a personal profit of more than $75 million, even though the hotel property's losing money. What is the timeline here? When do you expect the GSA to respond to your concerns that Trump has likely violated his contract with the government?" Wagner asked.
"Obviously, I would hope that they would expedite their view and would come to the same conclusion many of us have already, which is that on his base, the action by Mazar this week negates the validity of any financial information or disclosure Trump has provided to the GSA and justification for the lease he was granted six years ago. That ought to happen right away. This could be fraud. GSA should have nothing to do with it," Connolly said.
