Family values
How very squalid. Trump’s sister the judge retired so as to escape the consequences of a judicial complaint about the Trump siblings’ gigantic tax fraud. She keeps her pension, she keeps all the millions, nothing happens to her.
President Trump’s older sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, has retired as a federal appellate judge, ending an investigation into whether she violated judicial conduct rules by participating in fraudulent tax schemes with her siblings.
The court inquiry stemmed from complaints filed last October, after an investigation by The New York Times found that the Trumps had engaged in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud, that greatly increased the inherited wealth of Mr. Trump and his siblings. Judge Barry not only benefited financially from most of those tax schemes, The Times found; she was also in a position to influence the actions taken by her family.
Retired judges aren’t subject to the conduct rules, see, so the investigation was dropped.
In retirement, Judge Barry is entitled to receive annually the salary she earned when she last met certain workload requirements. Though the exact figure was not immediately available, it appears to be between $184,500 and $217,600.
And she gets to keep all the millions they scooped in via the tax fraud.
Judge Barry had been a co-owner of a shell company — All County Building Supply & Maintenance — created by the family to siphon cash from their father’s empire by marking up purchases already made by his employees, The Times investigation found. Judge Barry, her siblings and a cousin split the markup, free of gift and estate taxes, which at the time were levied at a much higher rate than income taxes.
Sweet of them to share it with a cousin. What generous people they are.
The family also used the padded invoices to justify higher rent increases in rent-regulated buildings, artificially inflating the rents of thousands of tenants. Former prosecutors told The Times that if the authorities had discovered at the time how the Trumps were using All County, their actions would have warranted a criminal investigation for defrauding tenants, tax fraud and filing false documents.
Well they’re not generous or even law-abiding to tenants, but they’re peachy to that one cousin.
Similarly, Judge Barry benefited from the gross undervaluation of her father’s properties when she and her siblings took ownership of them through a trust, sparing them from paying tens of millions of dollars in taxes, The Times found. For years, she attended regular briefings at her brother’s offices in Trump Tower to hear updates on the real estate portfolio and to collect her share of the profits. When the siblings sold off their father’s empire, between 2004 and 2006, her share of the windfall was $182.5 million, The Times found.
Squalid. Rich, but squalid.
I can (sort of) understand (the argument for) not initiating an ethics investigation against a retired judge, but dropping an investigation that is already underway? No.
After the Christchurch earthquakes the Institute of Professional Engineers launched an investigation into the structural engineers responsible for the design of the building that collapsed, killing 115 people (62% of all fatalities that day). The principal of the firm resigned from the Institute and they dropped the investigation. In December 2018 a judge found that decision to be an error of law. The engineer concerned is (of course) appealing that decision. Justice Collins ruled that allowing disciplinary proceedings to end after a member resigned flouted the trust society placed on professionals, and bodies such as ENZ, to ensure the merits of complaints are considered carefully. For that not to happen would undermine public trust.
If that is the case for a building designer, wouldn’t the same philosophy apply to an arbiter of justice in the community?
And what about the other participants in this conspiracy to defraud?
Lets hope that although the wheels of justice grind slow, they also grind finely.