Trump and his family, through the Trump Organization, committed tax crimes to cover up Michael Cohen’s rigging of the polls.
MSNBC’s Ari Melber explained:
Not only do you have this money and boxing glove transfer as a thing of value in the same filings in New York, it says the Trump Organization then put in false information about those payments. So not only is there a question of should they have been counted as election payments. I think that’s debatable, by the way. But then it says in the same filing that they grossed up for tax purposes Cohen’s request for reimbursement of 180 to $360,000. So you have a hanging potential tax violation, which is a federal crime, against the Trump Organization and any people involved including potentially his family. It doesn’t say who. There’s a lot more in here that has legal liability that hasn’t been completely finished in the investigation.
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MSNBC's Ari Melber Trump and his family filed false statements with the IRS about Michael Cohen poll rigging payments. https://t.co/HGxAFbTEwO pic.twitter.com/p4LYlopCrq
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) January 17, 2019
The payments were sad and pathetic because they spent money to rig online polls on Drudge, but they were also a crime because Trump and his family lied to the IRS about them. Trump’s kids and his company have some real legal exposure here. The campaign finance violation could be the least of Trump’s problems.
The president’s bigger problem is that Michael Cohen is spilling the beans about crimes that were previously unknown. This is a classic case of the cover-up being the crime, and just like other crime families, the Trumps could be going down for tax crimes.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
