Trump's Judge Sister Retires, Conveniently Ending Probe Into Family's Tax Schemes

[Zippyjuan]

https://splinternews.com/trumps-judg...obe-1833967093

Trump's Judge Sister Retires, Conveniently Ending Probe Into Family's Tax Schemes

For as much as President Donald Trump loves to rail against the judicial branch, he conspicuously neglects to mention that his own sister, 82 year old Maryanne Trump Barry, is a federal Judge. At least, she was until recently, when she retired from the bench, conveniently ending an inquiry into whether she was a part of her family’s long-standing series of alleged tax crimes first reported by the New York Times.

As the Times reported on Thursday, Barry had spent the past two years in a state of semi-retirement as an “inactive” third circuit federal appellate judge, but made it official in February. Her retirement came just ten days after a group of complainants were notified that their request to investigate which members of the Trump family may have benefitted from his long history of tax schemes would be “receiving the full attention” of a judicial conduct council.

By retiring, however, Barry is no longer subject to judicial conduct rules, and the Times reports that the complainants—two of whom spoke with the paper—were notified this week that the probe was dropped without reaching any conclusions.

While the Times’ initial investigation into the Trump family’s tax shenanigans did not directly implicate Barry, it did find the president’s elder sister was involved in an intra-family struggle to ensure wealth accumulated from patriarch Fred Trump’s real estate business would be passed on to his children. Specifically:

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.

Now that she’s officially retired, Trump Barry is reportedly entitled to a comfortable retirement package between $184,500 and $217,600 a year, per the paper. And she’s not subject to the probing eyes of investigators anymore—which is more than the rest of the family can say.

[Zippyjuan]

https://www.nbc-2.com/story/39228099...t-on-his-taxes

According to the Times, one of their key findings was a financial disclosure form from Barry's Senate confirmation proceedings in 1999 to be a federal appellate judge. This financial form was not redacted, and Times reporter Susanne Craig, one of the three reporters who broke the story, noticed an oddity in the filing -- a $1 million contribution from a Trump family-owned company called All County Building Supply & Maintenance.

Craig, along with reporters David Barstow and Russ Buettner, began to investigate the company. People familiar with family patriarch Fred Trump told them that All County was a "middleman entity created by President Trump and his siblings essentially to move cash from Fred Trump's companies to his children," the Times said.

After the company purchased items for Trump buildings such as cleaning supplies, the Times notes that a secretary would bill these "items to Fred Trump's buildings with a 20% to 50% markup," and the siblings would "pocket the difference." The siblings received millions in untaxed gifts from their father, skirting a 55% tax on gifts over a certain value that would have cut the total significantly, the Times reported.

According to Tuesday's report by the Times, the President helped "his parents dodge taxes" in the 1990s, including "instances of outright fraud" that allowed him to amass a fortune from them. The President and his siblings helped his parents build their wealth by hiding millions of dollars in gifts in a "sham corporation," according to the Times.

Barry, along with President Trump and their younger brother, Robert, were the executors of their father's estate, and in that capacity filed his tax returns 15 months after his death in 1999, the Times notes.

The judge's involvement in the practices outlined in the Times story is unclear. However, as one of the executors of her late father's estate, she and her brothers were responsible for verifying the accuracy of his estate tax return, which the Times notes "vividly illustrates the effectiveness of the tax strategies devised by the Trumps in the early 1990s."

"She signed the estate tax return. She is required to submit accurate information to be truthful. She was a lawyer at the time," professor Lee-Ford Tritt, a law professor and the director of the Center for Estate Planning at the University of Florida Law School, told CNN on Wednesday. Barry also was a sitting federal judge at the time her late father's tax returns were filed.

Barry, at 81 the eldest Trump sibling, was appointed to the federal bench in New Jersey in 1983 by President Ronald Reagan. Prior to that, she spent nine years as a federal prosecutor in New Jersey, rising to the position of first assistant US Attorney.

"I was at that time one of the highest-ranking women attorneys in any United States Attorney's Office in the country," she wrote in a 1999 questionnaire submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee when she was nominated to the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, a position to which she was nominated by President Bill Clinton.

more at link.

[angelatc]

She is 82 years old, but the left is making it a scandal that she retired.

[Zippyjuan]

She is 82 years old, but the left is making it a scandal that she retired.

Retiring isn't the scandal.

[angelatc]

Retiring isn't the scandal.

The fact that the Democrats are desperately to unearth anything that would help them politically is the scandal.

While the Times’ initial investigation into the Trump family’s tax shenanigans did not directly implicate Barry, it did find the president’s elder sister was involved in an intra-family struggle to ensure wealth accumulated from patriarch Fred Trump’s real estate business would be passed on to his children.

Oh the horror - trying to keep the family wealth in the family. The man's been dead for 20 years. Nobody in government cared until Trump won.

[ATruepatriot]

The fact that the Democrats are desperately to "unearth" anything that would help them politically.

Literally...

[dannno]

Retiring isn't the scandal.

Then perhaps you should consider changing the thread title.

[Zippyjuan]

If the question was Clinton tax fraud, you guys would be all over it. Since it is Trump, who cares?

[devil21]

So Reagan and Clinton (their administrations, really) both elevated her to the position that she was in. And she's Trump's sister.

That pretty much sums it all up, I think.

[enhanced_deficit]

Zippy, this looks like old stuff. If media is trying to make GOP/Right look bad and later turned out that at the time this alleged scheme occured Trumps used to be Hillary funding registered democrat socialists , won't Dems looks bad also and joke would be on media in a way?

[dannno]

If the question was Clinton tax fraud, you guys would be all over it. Since it is Trump, who cares?

If the question was Bush tax fraud, I would be all over it. If it were Tulsi Gabbard or Dennis Kucinich, I would say, "who cares?" (because it's probably bull$#@!, just like this story)

That is why you and acptulsa look so silly trying to make people like me out to be partisans.

[Matt Collins]

She is the one who told Judge Nap that Trump had decided against Kavanaugh for SCOTUS.

[unknown]

She is 82 years old, but the left is making it a scandal that she retired.

Yah really, that lazy bitch.

[unknown]

https://splinternews.com/trumps-judg...obe-1833967093

They evaded or tried to evade paying taxes?

God bless 'em.

[unknown]

If the question was Clinton tax fraud, you guys would be all over it. Since it is Trump, who cares?

I dont think thats correct.

Most on this forum (the actual Ron Paul people anyway), will generally side with anyone who attempts to evade taxes or the IRS.

[angelatc]

If the question was Clinton tax fraud, you guys would be all over it. Since it is Trump, who cares?

Oh, look - we have Zippy uncharacteristically resorting to bitter what-aboutism. Is this yet another new Zippy?