Trump Lawyer Attacks 'Self-Serving' Court-Appointed Monitor as a 'Javert' After She Calls Out Financial 'Errors' – The Messenger
The Donald Trump family's lawyer went on the offensive against the court-appointed monitor in the New York state civil fraud case on Monday, comparing her to the overzealous police inspector of Victor Hugo's novel-turned-musical "Les Miserables."
Since November 2022, former federal judge Barbara Jones has held the role of a court-appointed monitor watching over Trump's business empire, comprised of hundreds of entities. On Friday, Jones filed a 12-page letter summarizing that work for the judge who appointed her to that position: Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, who has been deciding whether to bar Trump for life from the New York real estate business.
In the letter, Jones found that Trump's financial information has contained "incomplete" or "inconsistent" disclosures containing "errors." As reported by The Daily Beast, legal experts opined that one of those errors may amount to "tax evasion." (Trump's attorney says in the letter that the claim is a "demonstrable falsehood.")
In the past, Trump and his lawyers have counterattacked any prosecutor, regulator, judge, or court employee perceived of acting against them, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, Engoron, and the judge's principal law clerk. Even though such bias accusations failed in the past, the pattern continued to expand on Monday, as the Trump family's lawyer Clifford Robert took aim at Jones, who previously escaped the former president's wrath.
In his letter, Robert suggested that Jones is attacking Trump for money, calling her report an "unabashedly self-serving statement" aimed at trying to preserve her position — in order to continue charging "exorbitant fees."
"The January 26 Report, issued mere days before an expected decision, has only two obvious purposes: (1) ensure the Monitor continues to receive exorbitant fees (in excess of $2.6 million to date); and (2) fill the gaping hole in the Attorney General’s case, namely, that there is no basis to support continued oversight," Robert wrote.
Justice Engoron is expected to issue a decision by Wednesday, which may extend the work of the monitor. Jones said her work continues to be necessary.
"Absent steps to address the items above, my observations suggest misstatements and errors may continue to occur, which could result in incorrect or inaccurate reporting of financial information to third parties," she wrote in her letter on Friday.
The Trump family's lawyer accused her of "factual inaccuracies" and called her report "misleading and disingenuous."
"Further oversight is unwarranted and will only unjustly enrich the monitor as she engages in some 'Javert' like quest against the defendants," Clifford wrote.
In "Les Miserables," first published in 1862, Javert is a cruel police inspector who sets out on an obsessive investigation into Jean Valjean, the protagonist who was arrested for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister's starving children.
In September, Justice Engoron found that Trump fraudulently inflated his assets up between hundreds of millions of dollars to billions of dollars every year for roughly a decade on statements of financial condition that he sent to banks and insurance companies. The judge issued a ruling dissolving any New York entity linked to Trump, his sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., or his business associates Jeffrey McConney and Allen Weisselberg.
Engoron must now decide whether to ban Trump, McConney and Weisselberg from New York real estate for life; ban Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. from the industry for five years; extend the work of the monitor over the Trump Organization; and impose a roughly $370 million penalty to return "ill-gotten gains."