[Trump doesnt even deny his tax fraud. He justifies it.]
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TRUMP: ‘ONE LAW FOR HUNGRY PIZZA THIEVES, ANOTHER FOR ME’  
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David Cay Johnston
July 2, 2021
DC Report
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_ Trump doesn't even deny his tax fraud. He justifies it. _

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The extraordinary indictment of the Trump Organization Thursday
prompted an extraordinarily awful response from its sole owner and its
lawyer.

Trump asserted that he can pick and choose which laws he obeys. His
lawyer, Alan Futerfass, says that prosecutors should have settled the
Trump Organization tax fraud allegations in secret negotiations, not
with criminal charges filed in public.

What’s brazen is how Trump and Futerfass reveal support for two
systems of justice, separate and unequal, with people like themselves
getting special light treatment.

Nine bucks for a hungry man should result in a life sentence, but tax
fraudsters should go on their way. That’s Trumpian chutzpah.

Pay close attention to the last words in this Trump Organization
statement: “The district attorney is bringing a criminal prosecution
involving employee benefits that neither the IRS nor any other
district attorney would ever think of bringing.”

The statement is a lie. Tax fraud cases involving unreported
compensation get prosecuted.

Still, the Trump Organization statement may serve a useful purpose by
awakening the public to how little prosecution there is against what
the IRS says is rampant and growing tax evasion at the top of the
economic ladder. Such inattention may cost the rest of us more than a
trillion dollars a year
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The Trumpian assertion that prosecutors should not bring charges
against thieves who steal from our governments reveals the entitled
view among too many of the wealthiest and most privileged Americans.
Many of the rich think money makes them special, so special that the
criminal law shouldn’t apply to them.

The 15-count indictments returned by a Manhattan grand jury are only
the first in what l likely will be a series of charges. Ultimately, I
anticipate that a grand jury will return a state-level racketeering
enterprise indictment. That would allow a receiver to take control of
the Trump Organization, ending its decades of cheating workers,
vendors, governments and investors.

The richly detailed bill of particulars hints at other likely
prosecutions.

Prosecutors charged Trump bagman Allen Weisselberg, chief operating
office for the organization, only after he repeatedly rejected
invitations to flip on Trump and turn state’s evidence. Weisselberg,
the indictment says, destroyed some evidence and maintained two sets
of books to hide transactions from tax collectors.

This indictment is a tool to leverage Weisselberg, to get him to
realize the awful fate that awaits him if he clings to Trump.

After 48 years of doing the Trump family’s dirty work, Weisselberg
has become a wholly owned psychological subsidiary of Trump’s
criminal mind. Breaking free would be difficult for Weisselberg, who
is about to turn 74, but the prospect of dying in prison may clarify
his thoughts about his moral and legal duty. Weisselberg could get 15
years, but he also might get probation
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Trump has long argued that he himself is above the law.

When Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance was trying to get his
accounting, business and tax records, Trump went to the Supreme Court
twice. In 2019, Trump lawyer George Consovoy told a federal judge
that if Trump actually shot someone on Fifth Avenue,
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NYPD could not even investigate the murder.

Trump Textbook

Y
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earlier Trump endorsed a textbook for his scam Trump University. This
is from Trump University Asset Protection 101: Tax and Legal
Strategies of the Rich
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“When you own your own business, you determine how much income tax
you pay.”

That’s not true, but it sure tells you how Trump thinks.

Contrast Trump’s cavalier attitude about breaking the law with how
American law enforcement and the courts treat those born into poverty
who commit petty nonviolent crimes.

Willie Simmons is serving life in an Alabama prison 
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stealing $9 in 1982. Alvin Kennard got the same life sentence
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stealing $36 in 1984, though a judge freed him last year.

50 years for a Pizza Thief

Jerry Dewayne Williams—broke, hungry and turned away when he begged
for food—grabbed a slice of pizza from four children in Redondo
Beach, Calif. Williams got 25 years to life
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though a judge let him go after five years.

And then there’s Leandro Andrade
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penniless man, who stole four videos in one store and five in another.
The U.S. Supreme Court held that his consecutive 25-year sentences
were “not unreasonable.”

Yet the Trump Organization asserts that enabling its chief finance
officer to steal $880,000 from the federal, state and New York City
governments shouldn’t be prosecuted.

Nine bucks, nine videos, one slice of pizza for a hungry man result in
life sentences or damn close, but prosecutors should look the other
way or allow tax fraudsters to negotiate in secret, pay some money and
go on their way? That’s Trumpian chutzpah.

Victor Hugo’s 19th century novel Les Misérables about Jean
Valjean, who stole bread for his starving sister and spent the next 19
years in prison, is not exactly fiction in modern-day America.

One law for peasants and another for the privileged is not in our
Declaration of Independence or our Constitution. Still, it dwells in
the hearts of a majority of our Supreme Court justices, as well as
Donald Trump and his well-heeled white-collar criminal defense
lawyers.

Expect More Indictments

You can be sure that the finely detailed case filed Thursday is far
from a comprehensive indictment of Trump Organization tax cheating.

Barbara Res, who for many years oversaw Trump construction projects,
told Ari Melber on MSNBC just hours after the arraignments about
dubious $1,000 a week expense accounts
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“The first time I started working for Trump, one of the first things
I encountered was, I was checking expenses of one of our top
employees, and they were ridiculous,” Res said.

Res said she spoke to Trump
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expense money only to discover he was behind it. “Trump told me to
just come up with just so much, I forget the amount, a thousand
dollars a week or whatever it was in expenses, maybe not that much
back then, and they’ll be paid. And they’ll be off the books.”

What Res described is tax fraud, plain and simple. And if we applied
to Trump the same standards applied to Simmons, Kennard, Williams and
Andrade, then Trump would have started wearing an orange jumpsuit
decades ago. But we don’t have equal justice for all.

Notice that Trump’s statement through the Trump Organization and
lawyer Futterfas’ statements aren’t denials of tax fraud, just
assertions that to prosecute for these crimes isn’t fair.

_David Cay Johnston [[link removed]] is
the Editor-in-Chief of DCReport. He is an investigative journalist and
author, a specialist in economics and tax issues, and winner of the
2001 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting._

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