Now that Grampa Rage Diapers is on his way to becoming a private citizen without his own attorney general mob consigliere paid for by the taxpayers, we can begin to unwrap all the DJT-focused lawsuits and Trump family criminal mischief like so many magical Christmas gifts.
And today brings even more revelations about Trump and his kin screwing over the little guy to line their own pockets. Hey, it’s what Trumps do.
According to a Thursday New York Times story, the Trump family inflated rents in buildings they owned by exaggerating the cost of materials that went into apartment improvements. Conveniently for the ocher abomination and his clan, it was the same scheme that ostensibly allowed the family to avoid gift and inheritance taxes on a portion of Trump patriarch Fred Trump’s fortune.
Ms. [Leonie] Green is among a group of tenants in rent-regulated apartments once owned by Mr. Trump’s father who have filed a lawsuit against the president and his siblings, accusing the Trumps of a decade-long fraud to win artificially high rent increases through an invoice-padding scheme.
The scheme, first revealed in a 2018 investigation by The New York Times, involved tacking at least 20 percent onto the cost of materials purchased for the apartments, with Mr. Trump, his siblings and a cousin splitting the extra proceeds. The maneuver generated millions of dollars for each sibling, with no work required. While the siblings were still liable for income taxes, the maneuver allowed them to evade far-higher gift and estate taxes on part of the fortune they received from their father.
But the tenants paid a price. New York laws governing rent-regulated apartments allow owners to increase rents based on the costs of major capital improvements. The Trumps based their applications for rent hikes on the artificially increased invoices, so a boiler that actually cost $50,000 would generate a rent increase as if it had cost $60,000.
Isn’t that sweet?
The lawsuit filed by Green, et al., is seeking the excess rent paid along with interest and triple damages. More than 30 apartment complexes are involved, and the scheme “ran from 1992 until the Trumps sold their father’s buildings in 2004, but the artificially increased rents remained in place.”
The lawsuit could pose a significant financial threat to Mr. Trump and his family. If the plaintiffs’ lawyers win approval of class-action status, any potential judgment would encompass every person who paid rent in more than 14,000 rent-regulated apartments since 1992.
Ouch. That’s a chunk of change.
I would encourage more people to come forward with lawsuits and criminal inquiries, but I have a feeling that’s all going to sort itself out on its own. Donald Trump has spent his life cheating, raping (allegedly), and abusing people, and this would be as good a time as any for a reckoning. If nothing else, we need to bury him in litigation until 2024, or until his garbage barge of a corpus is finally pushed out to sea — whichever comes first.
This guy is a natural. Sometimes I laugh so hard I cry.” — Bette Midler on Aldous J. Pennyfarthing, via Twitter. The first history of the Trump Error is complete! Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump is hot off the presses! Along with Dear Fcking Lunatic: 101 Obscenely Rude Letters to Donald Trump, Dear Prsident A**clown: 101 More Rude Letters to Donald Trump and Dear F*cking Moron: 101 More Letters to Donald Trump, you’ll see the Trump years from a hilarious new perspective. Click those links, yo!
