Trump Mazars USA accountant says decade’s financials are unreliable: NPR
Ted Shaffrey / AP
Mazars USA, a longtime accountant for the Trump Organization, the business of former President Donald Trump’s family, ended his relationship with the company last week as prosecutors continued their investigation.
The development was revealed in court documents filed Monday as part of an investigation by the New York state attorney general’s office.
In a February 9 letter to the Trump Organization’s executive vice president and chief legal officer, Mazars’ attorney warned that financial statements from 2011 to 2020 “should no longer be relied upon.”
“We have reached this conclusion based in part on a filing released by the New York Attorney General on January 18, 2022, our own investigation, and information received from inside sources and outside,” wrote William Kelly, the Mazars’ general counsel.
The disclosure comes more than seven months after Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. accused the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, for crimes related to an alleged tax fraud scheme. Weisselberg and the company’s attorneys pleaded not guilty and a trial in that case was will probably start as early as next August.
New York Attorney General Letitia James began investigating the Trump Organization in 2019 after Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, told Congress that Trump reduced his estate tax liability and took out a bank loan through manipulating his net worth.
James’s office has also cooperated with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office on a criminal investigation into the Trump family’s business practices.