Betty already posted about this, but what I want to know is why Trump’s accounting firm can just gut ties and face no repercussions. They fucking knew what he was up to and if they didn’t they were just really fucking bad at their job.
This reminds me of the bullshit credit ratings agencies in 2007 who had NO FUCKING IDEA there was gambling going on and never paid a price for crippling the global economy and effectively financially fucking an entire generation or two.
Baud
Heh. Cole doesn’t understand the difference between an audit and a compilation.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud: He does, but he was testing you.
Sebastian
The same shit is going on with the big four accounting firms. Wirecard, now Tesla.
They rubberstamp glaringly fraudulent earning statements and when the whole thing comes crushing down itâs shoulder shrugging and moving on.
cain
@Sebastian: Probably because there has never been any consequences in the past and that’s also why it’s good to have the GOP in charge – there will never be consequences.
Instead, all of us will be fleeced to pay for it all.
HeleninEire
The face no repercussions because that is how the system is set up. Firms like Mazars exist specifically to protect rich white men. It’s like when a white collar criminal is prosecuted there is an element to the crime where the prosecution has to prove that the defendant knew that what he did was illegal. That’s certainly not true for a low level drug dealer.
Cermet
The wealthy have known this ‘secret’ for decades – if you are wealthy play the “Get out of any liability” card. Its called “Plausible deniability”. Their practically untouchable in most courts of so-called law. Only in criminal does it have issues.
eemom
The cutting ties is damage control and has nothing to do with whether or not they’ll face repercussions. Accountants can absolutely be held liable to those who relied on their statements; that is WHY they’re trying desperately to cover their ass.
senyordave
I uesd to report directly to the CFO of an insurance company. It was not a huge company, but it had assets in the $300 million range. He was a stickler, always making sure that everything balanced to the penny. He would always remind us that he signed his name attesting the accuracy of all financial statements, and he was the one whose ass was on the line.
Sounds like no one’s ass is ever on the line when it comes to the Trump Org’s financial statements.
Perfect example of why I firmly believe they will never get Trump. No one is ever accountable when it comes to the powerful and rich.
Roger Moore
It sounds as if the accounting firm was certifying only the most basic stuff about Trump’s numbers. Basically they were assuming the numbers Trump started with were legitimate, and were only certifying that they had crunched those numbers correctly. It’s like the promises you get from your tax preparation software. They’ll guarantee there are no math mistakes, but they won’t lift a finger if you put some inaccurate information into the program. So yeah, if you start with the assumption the numbers the Trump people are giving you are accurate, you’ll love the business deal my friend in Nigeria is willing to offer you.
Martin
I think it’s too early to say that they won’t. I can think of a few scenarios here:
1) It’s possible the DOJ or NYAG has them and in order for them to minimize the damage done to the firm, they’re helping with the forensics of the Trump Org. That might get them off the hook, it might not.
2) it’s possible that the organization did not know. The audit would have been signed off on by a CPA. The CPA takes *personal* liability for the audit. They can personally be sued for fraud or malpractice, which also serves to insulate the larger organization. Here, the govt would be trying to show that this was known beyond the CPA which turns it in to a larger problem, but if it was only known by the CPA, then Mazars is probably on safe legal ground (reputationally might be a different matter). This is an important part of licensure, especially when the employer is maybe not large enough to cover the liability themselves. For instance, civil engineering firms tend to be small and tend to need to have licensed engineers to sign off on plans, because if a bridge collapses and causes $100M in lawsuits, the firm can’t cover that, but you can throw the licensed engineer who signed off in prison. And why Boeing doesn’t have licensed engineers because when a 737 falls out of the sky, Boeing can afford the payout.
3) All of this sort of stuff relies on clients being honest. I can lie to my tax preparer, and if I’m good I can do it in a way that they won’t question. But if they suspect I lied, how hard do they push? If they see a case where the client lied, do they throw a new CPA on the account to review the work already done?
It’s not like these allegations against Trump are new – they’ve been going on forever. Did Mazar ever go back and review their own work? Doesn’t sound like it. So in the case where I lie, the firm would probably not be held liable, because I’ve never lied before in filings. But we know the Trump Org has lied in the past, over and over. Taking the orgs word on this stuff doesn’t seem on the up and up. It’s why I said in the other thread that knowing the client lied and having plausible deniability that the client lied are VERY different things. It’s hard to go into Mazars and get a response ‘how could we have known?’ and take it seriously. Professionals are expected to exercise judgment. You don’t normally get to stand there and be lied to continuously and proclaim your innocence, because as you note, they can’t possibly be that bad at their jobs.
Mallard Filmore
@HeleninEire:
If it even looks like I did something illegal, the law is defective and must be changed.
TriassicSands
If being bad at your job was illegal, the Republican Party would have been banned long ago.
Jinchi
Right. They’re cutting ties, making the claim that the Trump organization lied to them about the underlying numbers.
We can believe them or not, but there’s no way to make it look good for the Trump organization.
hells littlest angel
We’re not an accounting firm, we’re a brand. Clients just pay for a license to put MAZAR in 10-foot high gold letters at the top of our documents.
The Thin Black Duke
@eemom: Hey you. Good to see you.
Kevin
Depends on the type of financial statements they issued. Compilation is the lowest service a CPA firm prepares which a) just puts the information in the right format and b) firm does no additional vetting of the information.
bbleh
I haven’t dug into the details, but I don’t think they audited his books or statements; they just took input from him, converted it into other forms, sorta-kinda checked to make sure everything felt more-or-less okay (a feeling no doubt helped along by large fee payments), put carefully worded disclaimers in front of everything with their name on it to minimize their formal legal liability, and gambled such prestige as they had that it wouldn’t come back to bite them too hard.
Oops.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
White & Gold Purgatorian
@Martin:  Fair warning, this is a nit regarding your Boeing example. I have no recent knowledge, but used to know an engineer at Boeing in the commercial aircraft division. The way he told it, the deal Boeing had with PEs (Professional Engineer or PE is the licensure term) was that if a plane failed and an involved PE was sued personally, Boeing would cover their legal expenses/arrange legal defense as long as the PE had adhered to approved engineering methods and standards. As I recall, those methods and standards were laid out in a set of documents called the Boeing Design Manual or something of that sort. It isnât that the company doesnât have licensed engineers. No doubt they have many, and probably a PE certificate commands a higher salary, but Boeing insures them rather than forcing them to carry professional liability insurance as individuals, as long as they follow the accepted practice. This was a long time ago so things may well have changed a bit.
sfinny
I think they are potentially still on the hook. While auditors always caveat that they are relying on information given them, they have a professional duty of care to evaluate those numbers. And the letter says that they have an un-waivable conflict of interest, which usually means that they could be a defendant, criminal or civil, where their interest diverge from Trump Org.
condorcet runner-up
@cain: arthur andersen would like a word …
they stuck with enron the whole way and it ended up being their downfall. remember we used to say “the big five” instead of “the big four.”
sfinny
And of course I notice the typo after the edit period has expired. My excuse is that I was playing laser tag with my cat.
Jharp
RaflW
Why Arenât They Liable? Because since at least Reagan (or Nixon’s first run, perhaps?), rich people have made all the rules.
The period from after the Robber Barrons till maybe 1960, the stronger energy in this country was for rules to be broad-based and reached up. But that was because the previous period was revoltingly top heavy, scandalous, and eventually crashed everything.
But for 60+ years now the law and order energy reached down. Are we eventually gonna repeat the cycle? I dunno.
Sebastian
@cain:
Yeah, this âbest system of allâ, this self regulating market, appears to be just one massive scam of siphoning money from the small guys
JoyceH
@sfinny: that was my first thought when I heard irreconcilable conflict of interest – theyâve turned stateâs evidence and are spilling everything they know.
Steeplejack (phone)
@eemom:
Good to see you, stranger!
The Dangerman
@TriassicSands: Au Contaire, they are great at their job, which is to keep the Rubes in line with legerdemain. They could give a fuck about ledgers until a Democrat is in office.
sfinny
@JoyceH: Not sure about that. Just figure they are allowing for the defense to be pointing the finger at Trump Org. Though would love to think they are cooperating.
Omnes Omnibus
@condorcet runner-up: I am old enough to remember that it was once the Big Six.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
sfinny
@JoyceH: Though I guess the public responses would be pretty much the same either way.
Poe Larity
Probably buried somewhere in the GrammââLeachââBliley Act.
citizen dave
@Omnes Omnibus: The best was in 2002 when PricewaterhouseCoopers announced a name change to “Monday”. Very shortly after the announcement IBM appears to have bought them and didn’t go through with it, based on limited googling on my phone.
Monday.
Dan B
There’s a great interview of former Congressman Joe Walsh by Chauncey De Vega at Salon. Walsh reiterates some of the points Adam Silverman has made but from a political perspective. He’s concerned about the dangers of the Trumpsters.
eemom
@The Thin Black Duke: @Steeplejack (phone):
Thank you, gentlemen!
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m even older, and it was once the Big 8. I am SO old that when my Dad (who was an accountant) referred to The Big 8, I thought that was the name of the company.
Dopey-o
Suzanne can attest to this. I know several small architectural firms that closed, due to the cost of liability insurance.
75% of construction projects end up in litigation, and a $100,000 fee wonât cover the insurance premiums on a $10 million potential judgement. (Well, it will, provided you donât need to eat, pay rent and keep the furnace running. Or send your kids to college.)
My last boss remodeled a building in Quinerlyâs old neighborhood, and the landlord added a balcony. A year or two later, during Mardi Gras, a reveler fell and suffered paralysis. Because his insurance had lapsed, the architect was not covered.
He closed his practice and now runs a B&B in NW Michigan.
different-church-lady
OT: looks like the judge is gonna toss Palinâs suit against the NYTs. Which means âInjuriesâ ainât gonna triumph on this one.
danielx
Re Enron and Arthur Andersen: that was a long time ago, and the Trump Organization isn’t Enron. It never would have occurred to Enron’s senior executives or those of Arthur Andersen to tell shareholders to attack (one way or another) the SEC, the Justice Department and FSM knows who else. Not to mention congresscritters lining up to bloviate about Enron’s misdeeds for political gain, including those who received contributions from Enron. IIRC, some Enron backers appealed to W on behalf of Enron management, to which W replied that things had gone too far and he wasn’t going to lift a finger. Au contraire, a significant number of Congressmen/women will be lining up to orate on behalf of poor persecuted Donald Trump, who couldn’t possibly be a thieving sonofabitch.
Chris T.
Short version: see Arthur Andersen.
Sometimes there’s a hint of justice in the corporate world. It’s rarely if ever more than just a hint though.
Some of this is because of reality: as other commenters noted, if you are an auditor/CPA/tax-prep-firm/whatever, and your client is a crook, you might just never know or notice, and in some cases this really shouldn’t be your fault. In other cases (many), it should be your fault, but isn’t. In a rare few (Arthur A and Enron), it should be and is. But the deck is carefully stacked against it, by those who buy the companies that manufacture the cards that go into the deck.
SiubhanDuinne
Was just reading a few of the comments to WaPoâs reporting on the Mazars USA story. This one made me laugh (mildly edited to correct a spelling error that was making me crazy):
prostratedragon
@danielx:Â â Their statement says that Mazar feels much less sanguine about all that. None of us knows, but it was worth a significant hedge to them.
frosty
@eemom: Hi, haven’t seen your nym in awhile. Glad to see you!
prostratedragon
@SiubhanDuinne: Boffo!
dww44
@The Thin Black Duke: I second that.
frosty
@Martin:Â @White & Gold Purgatorian: Your comments regarding licensure of PEs and architects are interesting. I’ve worked in a branch of civil (water resources) for a local government and a consultant.
No engineer in a local gov’t job is required to have a PE, even those doing design work; I can’t remember why.
As a consultant, every engineer in responsible charge of design work has to have a PE and seal the plans. In the places I worked, I don’t think the engineer would ever have been personally liable, the company carried the insurance. In one case I remember when final paving was done and the storm drain inlets were 3″ above the roadway, the company had to pay to have the work redone, not the engineer. I expect he got fired though.
I’ve always wondered why the storm drains we designed had to be sealed by a PE but planes and weapons don’t need a licensed engineer. I’m not sure your Boeing example answers the question for me.
NotMax
Who’s to say they won’t be? No charges have been brought against anyone/any entity yet.
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: But I am mad now!
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Frown lines bestow character.
//
Ruckus
@RaflW:
It’s possible either way. But it’s actually politics that needs to make the change. It’s what made the change before, because this isn’t the first time in our history that we’ve been in this position, it’s just that it’s a lot more obvious now because it’s a bigger problem because there is a lot more money and people involved.
And because of that last part, it may be a lot harder to make it work better. And BTW it was politics that changed it last time as well. The system has to change and find a way to stay changed, because everything has gotten bigger, and if it’s fixed and then screws the country again it will likely be the last time because it will destroy too much. But there are far more people in on the scam, even if most of them don’t know they are being used to screw them and most everyone else and that size is what makes this kind of economy fucking a lot worse.
Pragmatic Idealist
I’m a retired CPA. I agree that this must have been a compilation but some of the others pointing this out are overlooking something: Mazers also did the Trump taxes. This is where they will run into trouble. Taxes start with the financial statements and they will have no explanation for why valuations are drastically different on the financials and on the tax returns. I interpret these actions as a desperate attempt to find the best defensive posture for the trouble ahead.
Reverse tool order
It will turn out more complicated than this, but… The first iteration of the “why?” is the golden rule: have gold –> make rules. This firm is gold-adjacent to protect the gold by interpreting & using those rules. Trump, being himself, is perhaps manifestly going off sides from the winning team. Dangerously, we’re hoping. He may be meeting his match.
Jackie
@Pragmatic Idealist: Especially as Trumpâs taxes are due tomorrow! (Tue)
Roberts
@frosty:
The key thing about licensure is design services to the public. Â Weapons and Airplanes dont really meet that standard, nor do cell phones. Â Iâm an EE, and in my field, it seems to only be the electrical power distribution people who get licensed.
sab
@Pragmatic Idealist: I think you have this right. The compilation is nothing.There is a tax return due tomorrow and there were too many loose ends for the Mazar people to be willing to sign off onit.
Dopey-o
i was forced out of a great civic job as a Project Manager Architect because my license was issued by another state. Two attorneys specializing in architectural licensing said âBS.â
Well, I wasnât exactly fired, i was offered a position with the janitoral crew at a 60% pay cut.
The proximate cause was another architect whose performance failings were so obvious that my position was created. This person later went on to kidnap and terrorize his boss, and is now retired.
Donât know if he ever served time, Â but he is living with advancing Parkinsonâs. I got off easy, in the end. Quit design, started an IT business, had more fun than i deserved.
Had I been given the transfer I requested, I like to think I would have caught an embezzlement scheme in IT that cost my employer $3.4 million. But my arm is getting tired from patting myself on the back…. Schadenfreude is the best revenge.
Downpuppy
@Pragmatic Idealist: The diligence standard for a compilation is that it doesn’t contradict things you know. You don’t need to do testing or analysis, you just can’t close your eyes and play pretend.
So you’re right about the exposure if the tax work and f/s are blatantly different. I don’t see much exposure on the financials, partly because nobody was dumb enough to rely on them. (Assuming Deutsche Bank had other reasons to do business with Trump, which is their problem, not Mazar’s)
Bruce K in ATH-GR
There are audits and then there are audits – you can have an internal audit to make sure that the client’s calculations are accurate and sensible, and then you can have an adversarial audit of the sort that’s supposed to be done by the IRS against someone it suspects is committing tax fraud.
I’ve been involved in due diligence audits in the past, from a legal perspective, and a lot of the time, it involves sorting through reams and reams of documentation that’s too much for any one person to keep straight, and trying to sort out how the various items connect and if there are any conflicts or contradictions. That’s a routine thing, especially when a company is preparing to engage in a major transaction. But – the only source for the information is the client, and the accuracy of the audit is dependent on the accuracy of the information.
Enron was burying their shenanigans several layers deep in complicated, opaque transactions, and Arthur Andersen dropped the ball on unwrapping it all, but that’s not quite the same thing as outright fabrication of the raw data – unwrapping that requires a hostile audit with independent investigative and subpoena power.
I can see an accounting firm relying on the accuracy of the raw data that was provided and certified by its client, and then learning independently to its horror that the raw data were in fact cooked.
Of course, if you’re doing business with TFG and company, that doesn’t pass the smell test, because it’s been common knowledge for the better part of a decade that something there was rotten.
(Apologies for the lame puns.)
evodevo
@condorcet runner-up: Yep…this shit was exposed in a public way back in the Nineties – thanks to the MTM method of valuing assets, etc. I was surprised when Arthur Anderson was taken to task – that rarely happens. Evidently there are still ways to get around this. Hope they make an example out of Mazar.
Geminid
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: I wonder how the Trump Organization is getting their accounting done now. The Chief Financial Officer was Allen Weisselberg, and he was indicted last July by the Manhattan DA’s office. Reporting is that Weisselberg has been kept away from operations since for fear he might cooperate with prosecutors. Eric Trump looks like he’s in over his head, and Trump seems to attract second and third rate hires, at least in his political operation. What public accountant would want to work that mess now?
bjacques
Best we can hope for re Trump is more of whatâs happening nowâhis mounting legal expenses  and increasing unreliability as a political ally make any serious political or financial players (including even Russians) write him off and turn on him this year and long before 2024.
High justice, in the old sense, but Iâll take it.
NotMax
@Geminid
Four Seasons Total Accounting?
//
Joey Maloney
@Geminid:
If we’ve learned anything, it’s that there’s always another someone that Trump can convince “you’re special. I won’t fuck you over like I did everyone else I’ve ever dealt with.” Trump will look them in the eye and say, “Believe me,” and damned if they won’t.
I don’t know how he does it.
lowtechcyclist
@condorcet runner-up:Â â
I remember when we used to say “big eight,” I think it was, but I missed the ‘big five’ step on the way from eight to four.â
ETA: eemom says it was the Big Eight, and that’s good enough for me.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Joey Maloney: In Dungeons and Dragons terms, he dumped intelligence and wisdom and put all those skill points into charisma.
WaterGirl
@Pragmatic Idealist: Interesting perspective, thanks.
Alce_e_ardillo
@Martin: No one can really afford those kind of payouts, that’s why there is reinsurance. If Mazar’s doesnt care, I’m sure that GeneralRe or SwissRe to name two, do care.
Anonymous At Work
This reads like Mazar’s finally went back and both carefully AND fully unpacked all the “Magic Asterisks” in the numbers that Trump sent them over the years and discovered (quelle surprise!) the numbers are so flawed/fraudulent that they can’t be defended. Mazar’s is now trying to avoid being another Arthur Anderson and is announcing that full-and-total cooperation (subject to Trump’s claims of privilege that might exist), i.e. if you send them a subpoena, they’ll honor it ASAP and force Trump to object and intercede.